User talk:Ohconfucius/archive21

DEFENDER OF HONG KONG

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The Penguin Cabal

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Guild of Copy Editors September 2011 Backlog elimination drive rollover words

Hello Ohconfucius, I noticed that on the Guild of Copy Editors' September 2011 Backlog elimination drive, your rollover words are marked as follows:

"1775 (from March 2011)"

I'm afraid that the March rollover words only counted for May 2011, and they can no longer be used. Since you didn't copy edit any articles last drive, your rollover words should be zero. I'm sorry, truly I am, but this is the way it works, unfortunately. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please let me know. Regards, The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 16:39, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• I understand. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:42, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your help with Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard. -- James26 (talk) 21:32, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oh yes, I was about to write you a note about the rather unusual date formats used in the article. We do not use these formats because they are ambiguous, so they were changed to styles compatible with our style manual. Regards, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Ye Olde Tavern (Iowa)

This is Joe Chill, I changed my username because certain editors find it funny to say stuff like "Chill, Joe" and "Joe Chill needs to chill out" which I find annoying. Now that is out of the way. I'm just letting you know that I changed the first sentence because that wasn't sourced to the Sterns. It was sourced to the author of American Sandwich: Great Eats from All 50 States. I'm letting you know because I don't want you to feel like I'm stepping on your toes. I did use the same format of the sentence though. My reasoning for leaving the hook that way was because American Sandwich, books by the Sterns, and articles state that the restaurant is where the tavern sandwich was created or that it was possibly created there. If you have any suggestions for the hook, I'm all ears. About the template - I do find it odd that Rjanag said that I could check off those two parts of the template, but I didn't know of any discussion about the template and Rjanag did create it. SL93 (talk) 21:44, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the heads up, and for the patches. I have no issues with that. regards, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:32, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

HK private housing estates

Your input would be welcome to get dirty in there Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hong Kong. Thank you. olivier (talk) 20:58, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Merge discussion for [[ Quantum_Group_of_Funds ]]

An article that you have been involved in editing, [[ Quantum_Group_of_Funds ]], has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going [[ Talk:Soros_Fund_Management |here]], and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. HaroldErica (talk) 17:08, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Rename of Voitto Hellsten article

Hi! See [1] for info upon my renewed request. TIA/--Paracel63 (talk) 18:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Bug report

"General formatting" isn't showing up in my toolbox any more, in the edit or main screens. I haven't changed my monobook since before it stopped showing up. Has anyone reported that bug before? - Dank (push to talk) 18:59, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

• No, in fact, the button is still there for me and for a friend, but we both use it in the new skin (vector.js). I suspect it might have something to do with monobook, I can only suggest that you purge the cache again. Let me know if you still don't have it – I'll flag it at WP:VPT. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • It may be my error then, because I can't get it to work in vector either; I just created User:Dank/vector.js that has only "importScript("User:Ohconfucius/formatgeneral.js");", and couldn't see "general formatting in the toolbox, in the main or editing screen for an article, after refreshing the cache. - Dank (push to talk) 02:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Ah, I see what's happened. I had assumed it very recently stopped working for you, and I failed to notice the import string. I reorganised the scripts, and it's now located at User:Ohconfucius/script/formatgeneral.js, so you need to insert '/script' into the import string so that it reads:

    importScript("User:Ohconfucius/script/formatgeneral.js");

apologies. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:28, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, it's working now. - Dank (push to talk) 03:33, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

inre Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Guy Williams, Jr.

We're not in disagreement about Guy Williams, Jr. missing on WP:ENT, being somewhat slack on WP:GNG, and not meriting an article. But as he was covered in depth by 'The New York Times and New York Daily News and is sourcable in connection with his father,[2] might you agree that a redirect to Guy Williams (actor)#First artistic steps, where he is already mentioned in just that context, would make sense? Thanks, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 04:26, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• No, I'm sticking. The mentions in both articles are 'trivial' on 'junior', focussed on his father. The father's WP article has a paragraph about 'junior', but it's actually unsourced and would have been removed had Williams senior been alive. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:51, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Good point. I just went ahead and added sourced information about the son honoring the father.[3] Thanks for pointing out that lack. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:34, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Tom Helling

I see you prodded Tom Helling. I had already prodded the article, so you can't do it again. The creating editor had asked questions on the talk page, so I was giving him some time to come up with reliable references. I guess he hasn't and I forgot about doing an AfD. Thanks for reminding me. I'll do an AfD right now and you can put your 2 cents worth in too. Oh... I really love the elephant picture on your userpage. It is perfect. Bgwhite (talk) 09:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

:-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:08, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Can't win for losing

Got crap for refactoring a title ([4]), got crap for not doing so ([5]). Fun times indeed.

Haven't completely ignored Wikipedia:Date formattings, but just a bit slow to check out the stuff there. Dl2000 (talk) 03:27, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

• I recently came across a similar case to the first complaint as last week that I put back manually before saving. I thought it was sufficiently rare not to adjust the code.

  See this post. We'd be spared most of these problems if titles actually were titles. In fact, it looks as though it would not be incorrect to leave the mdy date in the title. ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Use mdy dates

Template:Use mdy dates has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gigs (talk) 13:37, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment that:

The Date delinking case is amended as follows:

Remedies 16 and 18 (as amended) are terminated, effective immediately. Ohconfucius is reminded that this subject remains within the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee, and that he is expected to abide by all applicable policies and guidelines, especially those concerning the editing and discussion of policies and guidelines, and the use of alternate accounts.

For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 16:50, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Discuss this

Date formatting issue and automated editing

Hi Ohconfucius! I noticed that you have changed (assisted by a script) date formatting in a number of Israel-related articles. The formatting seems to be inconsistent as you have used day–month–year formatting in some cases, and month–day–year in others. In any case, changing from one format to the other is generally not recommended. There has never been a centralized discussion on WikiProject Israel about this because both European and American style date formatting is frequently used here, but changing between them is not a good idea. I may revert some of your edits that made such changes. If the inconsistencies were not caused intentionally, please keep in mind that automated editing can do a lot of damage if not properly overseen. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 18:37, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Please stop doing these edits. They are completely innapropriate, and go against consensus. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:48, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

We'd have to wonder if there is some bias towards ISO formatting in the ISO/full-date debate e.g. these changes in an article which previously used full date ref formatting. Dl2000 (talk) 01:20, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I have long noticed that Gimme seems to have a 'thing' against common-garden dmy or mdy dates appearing as an accessdate. Problem isn't mine, excepts when xhe drags me all over town for aligning dates. As for the Hadron article, I was about to go and fix it, but it seems that an editor working on that article has reverted Headbomb's change. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:26, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Do you have an explanation for your script-based removal of yyyy-mm-dd formats in Coco Lee and Elva Hsiao despite their clear presence prior to your edits? Gimmetoo (talk) 01:42, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

[6] What is this? The article had a style and you "filled out" some urls without following that style. So now you "reverted" the style of the references you "filled out" back to your preferred style, leaving the artilcle inconsistent? Do you really think that's appropriate editing? Gimmetoo (talk) 02:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to go down a mutual recriminations route. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:03, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but I'm looking for some explanation of how your edits are consistent with policy and guideline on the issue. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, you have not responded. Also, your script is making errors, for example here: [7] Do you have BAG approval for your script? Gimmetoo (talk) 03:36, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

He does not. And as a member of the WP:BAG, I would strongly suggest that such approval be given before resuming the use of that script, otherwise I would have a hard time not seeing this as the equivalent of an unapproved and malfunctioning bot and would recommended a block. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

If we look at User:Ohconfucius/script#Date_formats, we can see that Ohconfucious places the onus of responsibility on others for mistakes he might make using HIS script. "If you want articles on your watchlist to retain any given format (or for it to have all yyyy-mm-dd dates in the accessdate field), you should ensure that the all of dates are in aligned in accordance with WP:MOSNUM, otherwise I consider them 'fair game'." I do not think this is the collaborative experience wiki-editors want. With that script one cannot change back to YYYY-MM-DD. Instead, the conversion of yyyy-mm-dd in accessdates should be removed from the script, and a separate script should exist that can convert in any direction AFTER editors have made a careful examination with WP:DATERET in mind.--JimWae (talk) 02:06, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• What was the problem with this edit? Standardizing date formats seems to be within MOS, or am I missing something? --John (talk) 04:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Standardizing dates yes, switching formats for no reason, no. The current consensus, and it hasn't changed in years, is that prose dates should be in fully written format, and consistent within themselves ("12 March 2005", "March 12, 2005"), and numeric dates should be avoided, except in quotes (aka no YYYY-MM-DD). References (|date=, table dates, etc... may be in the same format as prose, but can also be abbreviated (e.g. 12 Mar 2005) or in YYYY-MM-DD format. Likewise accessdates should follow the reference (|date=) format if it differs from prose, or be in YYYY-MM-DD format. Which means you can have something like

George died from eating a poisoned apple, on 12 July 2004.

And it's perfectly MOS-compliant. In this case, the dominant format for |date= was "12 January 2001", while the dominant |accessdate= format was "2001-01-12". And thus OhConfucius inappropriately switched accessdates to "12 January 2001" format.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• I would just say the vast majority of articles whose dates I work on are a mish-mash of dates that cause no problems (for me) because no-one can claim a dominant date format; the problem arises where the |accessdate= is 'artificially' ring-fenced due to the insistence of certain editors, making the manual detection occasionally problematical. I regret there is still a rate of false positives which needs to be reduced.

  I would re-emphasise that a small number of editors are deliberately trying to ring-fence |accessdate= from being changed to dmy or mdy formats, but I will have to try better to respect. Fact is, many of such formats were placed a long time ago in the backdrop of date autoformatting, or without a forethought because editors 'monkey see, monkey do'; or they are inserted by scripts like Reflinks, which by default incorporate yyyy-mm-dd dates which few can be bothered to change into the prevailing format in the body; usually, only when they get worked on by editors other than me for GAC or FAC, they then get changed. It's so ironic that I get to task for aligning these because of certain individuals' preference for this format. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

A preference which is entirely justified, and well-accepted by people. You don't like it, fine. But you don't get to enforce your personal preference on articles with an established style. Just like people who prefer the YYYY-MM-DD format don't get to switch non-YYYY-MM-DD format to their personal preference. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:38, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I admit I don't like a mix of formats; I also admit I sometimes have difficulty parsing same for the sake of processing dates with the script. I know two wrongs don't make one right, but I believe someone gave just an example above where Gimme did just that. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Gosh, I had no idea. What's so good about xxxx-xx-xx dates in references? I admit I usually make the date formats consistent across an article when I use reflinks, for example, and no-one has ever complained. I had no idea it was controversial. Isn't it better if the whole article, including references, uses one date format? --John (talk) 06:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's an example, made right before I came here. I saw the dates were all over the place, used the script to align them to mdy, and took out a little overlinking. Should I hold off on making edits like that? As I say, no-one has ever complained, and I had no idea it was controversial until I happened to see this conversation. --John (talk) 06:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

"What's so good about xxxx-xx-xx dates in references?" Nothing – at best it makes the refs have a different style to the body and at worst it's ambiguous because many readers don't know if 2011-07-08 means 8 July 2011 or 7 August 2011. However, there are a vocal minority of editors who like that style and it goes against the MoS to change away from yyyy-mm-dd if it that style consistently used in the article. Also, I will note that although Ohc admits he doesn't like a mish-mash style, that does not mean he is deliberately changing away from the yyyy-mm-dd style when it is consistently used. If two or three false positives are all that can be found from his thousands of edits, then I would argue that's a pretty good success rate. Jenks24 (talk) 10:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

"two or three false positive"? Another couple: [8] [9]. Prior to Ohconfucius' edits, the articles had 1 of 1 and 3 of 3 accessdates in yyyy-mm-dd, respectively. And there are also [10] [11] [12] [13] changing date formats in tables; tables may use yyyy-mm-dd format per MOSNUM. This is just from a small sampling of recent edits made while the script use is actively under question, when Ohconfucius would presumably use the highest degree of care with these edits. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Different information is more easily parsed/distinguished if it is presented in different format. The publication date reflects something from the real-world thing, the time the thing was published, while the accessdate is a technical factoid. As for a "vocal minority", I really doubt that considered the vast majority of articles I came across (and I came across a lot), including FAs and GAs, have accessdate in YYYY-MM-DD format (aka, quark, Dookie, Edward Low, etc...) Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I already stated above that the use of date autoformatting and tools like Reflinks contribute significantly to the prevalence of ISO dates. Notwithstanding, editors, when they are motivated or confused, actually physically change it into dmy or mdy despite the arduous task; there are editors who delightfully ask me to align an article they are working on when they notice I have aligned a first one already on their watchlist. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:27, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

And there are just as many, if not more, that are asking you to not change them per WP:DATERET and WP:CITEVAR. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:42, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The talk page has changed, but the script still converts accessdate= only to DMY and MDY, with no ability to convert to YMD. Since accessdate= is treated separately in the MOS, there ought to be a separate script for accessdate=, allowing conversion to ANY of the three in accord with WP:DATERET. Right now, there is an anti-YYY-MM-DD bias in his script, encouraging people to ignore WP:DATERET--JimWae (talk) 10:15, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Reminds me of my student days, when loony lefties were continuously finding offence by use of terms such as 'chairman', and even 'person'. For info: there are other scripts out there that convert exclusively cite dates, to ISO, dmy, and mdy, and it is not my intention to create scripts that do the same thing. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:27, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Reminds me to remind you that I have not tried to link you to any looniness, so why do that to me? The MOS supports accessdate=yyyy-mm-dd, whether you like it or not. There is an anti-accessdate=YYY-MM-DD bias in your script. The part of your script that changes ALL dates, regardless of whether they are accessdate= or not, needs to be removed from your script.--JimWae (talk) 10:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Apologies, but no offence was intended. You know the mind works by association, and any cries of 'discrimination' strongly associate with my time as a student already mentioned. I reject that there is bias in my script, as users are free also to import another script, which does the other half of the job you are concerned about. There is already a pair of buttons that leave dates within citation templates alone; the "part of your script that changes ALL dates, regardless of whether they are accessdate= or not", was provided to give users choice and convenience. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:46, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

[14] You did it again. The article had 17 refs which consistently used yyyy-mm-dd format for both publication and accessdate. Why did you change it? [15] Likewise, the predominant style is evident. Are you individually reviewing each edit? Gimmetoo (talk) 13:54, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

• oh drat, thanks for fixing them. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 00:02, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • What is "oh drat" supposed to mean? That despite months of notices, you have still failed to make any effective changes to your editing to avoid these "errors"? I have asked you before, and you do need to reply: what precisely and specifically do you intend to change to bring your editing in agreement with guideline and policy in the future? Gimmetoo (talk) 02:37, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Can you please stop using the script until you have fixed this problem? We are probably going to need a new request for arbitration if these edits do not stop immediately. You have been asked and warned a million times. Nanobear (talk) 02:46, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Please explain the following edits: [16] [17]. It appears that you are still changing date formats in violation of the MOSDATE guideline. I have asked you repeatedly to state precisely what resolutions you were making to bring your editing into compliance with guideline. You have notoriously failed to answer, and instead, are continuing to edit in violation of the guideline. You should have brought your editing into compliance with Wikipedia guidelines months ago. I will appreciate your quick response. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:07, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• Now fixed. Apologies. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 23:06, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Per this edit and this edit, yyyy-mm-dd was the original (and long maintained) format for accessdate= in Stony Brook University. Please restore to that format.--JimWae (talk) 21:19, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

There's still a problem--JimWae (talk) 22:52, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

[18] In this edit, you changed an article that had 100% consistent in yyyy-mm-dd format. You need to provide an acceptable, detailed and effective plan for bringing your editing in compliance with MOSDATE requirements. Your response at this point is not optional. Gimmetoo (talk) 23:03, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

[19] [20] [21] [22]. Your editing is still not in compliance with MOSDATE. Please stop these edits until you provide a detailed and effective plan to bring your editing into complaince with MOSDATE. You have been asked to do this for months, and it is now time that you do it. Gimmetoo (talk) 10:04, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Add [23] [24] [25]. Those 7 problem edits in the last 42 articles you edited involved some articles with quite a few citations (23, 9, 15, 32, 69, 3, 5), and one of the articles was a featured article. Gimmetoo (talk) 10:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Also [26]. The script being used does not have the facility to convert all accessdate=s to yyyy-mm-dd. This facility needs to be added to comply with MOSDATE.--JimWae (talk) 11:01, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Still at it [27]. I also note a troubling pattern where you "fill in" references [28] failing to follow the established style of the article, then return later [29] for "style fixes". Please stop these edits and respond to concerns. You promised back in March, after similar complaints, that you would no longer change dates within the accessdate field. In the subsequent 8 months, you have not changed behaviour, and have made thousands, probably tens of thousands of edits changing date formats despite numerous complaints and ANI threads about it. Will some other administrative route be necessary to force you to bring your editing into compliance with guidelines? Gimmetoo (talk) 13:16, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

• I think you're being a tad unfair. It would seem that I cannot do anything which is right by your book. Would I be correct in saying that you do not want to see me changing a single date away from yyyy-mm-dd format irrespective of the disposition of the dates in any given article? The overwhelming number of dates in the Lehman's article are in mdy, for four months – stable in the lifespan of any Wikipedia article; I come and align the very small handful of non-mdy dates that were inserted subsequently, and I get flack from you, again. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you want to count the dates in various formats in the Lehman article? It is readily apparent to me that the vast majority of dates in the references in that article were in yyyy-mm-dd, prior to your edit. Yes, there were some dates in other formats, but the predominant style is completely clear to anyone who actually looks at the references. You changed the format. Why did you do that? If you had no good reason, then your edit was a violation of WP:DATERET. At the very minimum, you need to stop changing the format of accessdates away from the clearly predominent form in those articles in which a form predominates. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Though Ohconfucius has removed

"If you want articles on your watchlist to retain any given format (or for it to have all yyyy-mm-dd dates in the accessdate field), you should ensure that the all of dates are in aligned in accordance with WP:MOSNUM, otherwise I consider them 'fair game'."

from User:Ohconfucius/script#Date_formats, I see nothing to indicate a change in intent.--JimWae (talk) 00:40, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucius also changes the formats in articles that are previously completely consistent. Including recently. Gimmetoo (talk) 01:00, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

He did make an effort to change Stony Brook University back after I requested it, but gave up when his script would not do it all automatically w/o also changing date=s - and did not catch them all.--JimWae (talk) 01:14, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, you are continuing your long-term pattern of editing without responding here. Please stop all editing related to date formats and discuss here. This will be the final "request". Gimmetoo (talk) 21:51, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

• What are you prattling on about?. Have you really looked at my edits? For at least the last 24 hours, I have been going adding references to articles instead of their bare urls. Your last message/"warning" seems, as I suspected, to suggest that I should stop editing altogether, which you know is unacceptable. If you have any specific points or comments about what I have been doing wrong in the last 24, then please do, otherwise, I would appreciate it if you would stop hounding me. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 00:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes I have looked at your edits. Recently, you are "filling out" references without following the style already in some of those articles. That makes those articles inconsistent. You also recently went through a number of articles that you "filled out" previously and made them "consistent" to the style you had installed in the article. That approach seems clearly contrary to DATERET. If you believe that editing is in compliance with DATERET, then you need to say how, and state clearly the ground rules under which you are editing. Gimmetoo (talk) 01:18, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Gimmetoo, as far as I can see, you have the time to pester other editors who are working to improve the project, citing uncertain rules that appear to make it messy. Please use your time more productively. Tony (talk) 01:54, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Tony, as far as I can see Ohconfucius is, contrary to existing guidelines, arbitrarily changing date formats in articles. Arbitrary style changes are a distraction, and hence disruptive. Are you saying the solution to style warriors is to simply let them do whatever they want, even if it is in standing violation of the guidelines? Ohconfucius even promised to stop this some eight months ago. Enough is enough. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:02, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Gimme, I'm glad this you clarified the grounds of your complaint, and that you are no longer complaining that I am changing date formats. I would note I see every day that there are plenty of editors out there who go filling out references using ISO dates when the prevailing dates in the articles are dmy or mdy. Why don't you go pester them instead? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:16, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

How annoying that formatting inconsistencies are being introduced into articles as we speak, rather than being fixed. Tony (talk) 06:16, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm finding my hands being increasingly and unreasonably tied There's only so much that can be done if certain existing dates and date formats are effectively ring-fenced. :-( --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:42, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Is it your view that asking an editor to comply with guidelines and policies is "pestering"? Given the negative connotations of "pestering", are you suggesting that no editor should ask another editor to comply with guidelines and policies? I notice that Ohconfucius has not stopped changing cate formats in articles [30] - please stop. Please state clearly and explicitly the ground rules under which you change the date formats in the references in articles. Gimmetoo (talk) 11:13, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you've finally lost it. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Please stop making date format edits until this is resolved. Now, will you state clearly the ground rules under which you change date formats in articles? Gimmetoo (talk) 11:39, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I am not, I repeat, not changing any ISO dates. I am filling in bare urls. I would mention that I just found a bug in my script which may have caused the small glitch (changed '2010-11-28') in this edit; it has since been corrected. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:48, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, you did change that ISO date format. Are you saying that you will never return to these articles and change the date formats to be "consistent" with the style you have just installed in these articles? Some of the articles you have edited recently had existing date formats that were different than the style you installed. Gimmetoo (talk) 11:55, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

There's no danger in that, as it seems that you are immediately following up behind me to make the articles "consistent". BTW, dates in Hongwu_Emperor were not all in unified format; UK, Ireland, Singapore, Malaysia, SA, Australia, NZ, India and Pakistan use dmy dates, so they get changed. Nothing arbitrary about it --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:05, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

You are editing far too fast for anyone to adequately review your edits. When I spot-check, however, I routinely find problems. For instance [31] - prior to your edit, how many references had retrieved followed by date in something other than yyyy-mm-dd? Why did you install a different format? Please make clear the rules under which you are changing date formats, as you have been asked to do many times over a period of months. And again, please stop making edits related to date formats until you have provided your rules and they are verified to be appropriate. Your editing behaviour suggests that your rule is to change date formats however you wish, and respond to complaints by saying "oops"; I do not find those rules appropriate. Gimmetoo (talk) 17:00, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

[32] After 8+ months of asking, I am done asking. Effective from now on, if you make any edits which violate MOSDATE, you will be blocked one day for the first edit in violation of MOSDATE, with the length doubling for each subsequent edit in violation of MOSDATE. Specifically, that includes any change to date formats contrary to the "established" style of the article, and any insertions of new date formats that do not follow the "established" style. If you have any questions about this editing restriction, you are to resolve them with me before, not after you make the edit. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:56, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

• The article had 'illegal' date formats throughout the refs section. '11-05-2011' is not a date format recognised in MOSDATE. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:29, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I will not put words into your mouth, but since you have sidestepped ever stating the ground rules under which you edit, it is difficult to guess what you might be doing. What are your rules for "national ties"? Will you clearly and directly state the ground rules under which you edit? Do you have a guideline-based explanation for this one, where you both installed new date formats, and changed some of the existing date formats? Gimmetoo (talk) 06:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd have thought the guidelines were specific enough: sometimes there are difficulties, such as for a British actor who moves to the US for most of their career, or take Christopher Hitchens as another example. But we seem to manage, don't we? Tony (talk) 06:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC) And Gimmetrow, your threat is a clear contravention of WP:INVOLVED, since it seems to be your own pet project to hamper OC's work in this field. I don't see anyone else complaining, yet you've made yourself a persistent sniper in relation to this. You need to back off with your threats to use admin tools to further your personal agenda. Tony (talk) 06:47, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm hardly surprised she (GM2) doesn't understand what I'm doing, considering she reverted my edit at Opuntia polyacantha – perfectly compliant with the relevant guidelines. In any event, it seems that she may not be sufficiently acquainted with the MOSNUM guideline, or she is attempting to nail me for disruption when she herself is gaming the system. I do try to maintain consistency of date formats. I did have principles stated on my userpage, but now I am more or less deferring to Wikipedia:Date formattings. The above "warning" of a month-long block sounds pompously like an Arbcom remedy, but from an admin it sounds much more like intimidation and bullying because the constraints are totally unreasonable and make date harmonisation impossible – that I have to seek her approval before I change any date format. I have increasingly less doubt that she is out to stop me from harmonising dates altogether because it interferes with her own agenda to install ISO dates everywhere. This thread is clear enough indication that she wants to make all citation dates into ISO where possible. She has also written a script to do that job. Tony is right that she is WP:INVOLVED. Now will she stay out my hair? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:25, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm amused by the allegations of "involved". I'm "involved" because I engaged with Ohconfucius to attempt to get Ohconfucius to bring Ohconfucius' editing into compliance with MOSNUM. Ohconfucius has routinely been changing date formats away from the established format, and specifically away from yyyy-mm-dd formats when those are clearly allowed by MOSNUN. Ohconfucius also routinely and regularly edits to install date formats different from the existing formats. After 8+ months of non-compliance from Ohconfucius, and complaints from other editors about the same thing, Ohconfucius has not changed editing behaviour. If you seriously think this makes me "involved", then I am quite happy to drop this off at AE, but you should consider what behaviour is encouraged when you call others "involved" for engaging with a user - it encourages them not to engage, and to block users at the first indication of disruption. Furthermore, once you change every date format in an article, it is extremely difficult to change, so it becomes a WP:FAITACCOMPLI (a principle I assume you are familiar with, Ohconfucius). I wrote that particular script after you, Ohconfucius', changed the date formats in over 100 refs in an article I had just spent quite a while organizing by hand (and you still left the article inconsistent). It is that disregard for other editors work and choices that is inherently problematic. Add in a persistent refual to reply to direct questions, and what do you expect? Have you yet stated clearly the rules under which you operate? What does "strong national tie" mean to you? What does "established" style mean to you? Gimmetoo (talk) 07:45, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I see you also linked another thread. That incident happened due to this edit by Tony1. Are both of you saying that Tony1's edit was completely and perfectly fine? That it is completely and perfectly acceptable and the epitome of good editing to change every other formatted date when a single date format doesn't happen to match? Gimmetoo (talk) 08:03, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:TIES means US articles, except US military, employ mdy dates; UK, SA, IRL, AUS, NZ, SGP, MYS, IND, PAK all use dmy dates. The style guides emphasise consistency. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to your interpretation? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Is a plant whose distribution lies predominantly in the US a US topic? Is someone whose notable work occurred in the UK a UK topic? Gimmetoo (talk) 08:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Depends who (the brand) the plant belongs to. Articles on Virgin Group companies, unless they are brands specific to USA, should all be dmy; all works by Elgar or the Beatles and all fictional characters created by Ian Fleming and JK Rowling are dmy. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:46, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

A plant whose distribution lies predominantly in the US: Opuntia polyacantha. Now please answer: do you think it is perfectly acceptable to change the predominant date format of an article's references when a minority are in a different format? Do you think it is perfectly acceptable to change the predominant date format of an article's references when none are in a different format? Do you think it is perfectly acceptable to "fill out references" using a date format that differs from the existing format? Gimmetoo (talk) 13:09, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I thought you were talking about plant and distribution! I've gone and put that into mdy now. I trust that it is to your satisfaction. I usually leave such articles alone, and think it's the first time I've converted an article like that – it's only because the dates were in an 'illegal' format. You're obviously trying to catch me out with --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:38, 17 November 2011 (UTC)Twenty Questions, so you won't mind if I don't respond any more in such general terms --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:38, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I've asked you very specific questions that can be answered yes or no. Do you think it is perfectly acceptable to change the predominant date format of an article's references when a minority are in a different format? Do you think it is perfectly acceptable to change the predominant date format of an article's references when none are in a different format? Do you think it is perfectly acceptable to "fill out references" using a date format that differs from the existing format? Let's start with those, Ohconfucius. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

People "fill out references" using a date format that differs from the existing format all the time. Why pick on me? Why don't you go and chase somebody else who goes around, whether manually or semi-automatically, putting reference dates (or any dates, for that matter) into "another format" than the one prevailing in the article. Is it because most of the time it's using Reflinks, that automatically puts dates into yyyy-mm-dd? If that's the reason, you're just full of shit. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 22:40, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you answer the question: Do you think it is perfectly acceptable to "fill out references" using a date format that differs from the existing format? Gimmetoo (talk) 13:24, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

• Gimme, it's my opinion—and I think I'd be backed up by quite a few editors—that where it's in a grey area, it's no big deal whether USEng or BrEng varieties is chosen. What's more, we shouldn't lose sleep over it. The important thing is that it be consistent within the article. Tony (talk) 13:32, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

If it's "no big deal", then why has Ohconfucius changed formats in numerous articles? Does DATERET mean anything? Are you at least saying you agree that it's wrong to "fill out references" using a date format that differs from the existing format? That it's wrong to add inconsistency? Gimmetoo (talk) 13:43, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

6 related Qs for OhC:

1. What do you consider to be the proper thing to do with an article that began with YYYY-MM-DD for all accessdates and
   1. All accessdates are currently in the form YYYY-MM-DD?
   2. 95% of accessdates are in the form YYYY-MM-DD?
   3. 50% +1 of accessdates are YYYY-MM-DD?
   4. 50% -1 of accessdates are YYYY-MM-DD?
2. Have you ever made an edit to change all accessdates to YYYY-MM-DD?
3. Have you ever used a script to change all accessdates to YYYY-MM-DD? --JimWae (talk) 21:02, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

1. You know that– the answer is yes to all three, some by accident, some by design. Dates in an article are either 100% consistent, or they are not, just like you cannot be half pregnant. In the case of q3, I most often leave such articles well alone, unless there are other obvious inconsistencies in the body of the article.--Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 22:40, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Gimme, where there are already inconsistencies in a ref list, what is to stop someone adding more refs/dates in the article-consistent format? Tony (talk) 13:33, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Your question seems to be a contradiction, Tony. How about you answer my questions - is it wrong to "fill out references" using a date format that differs from the existing format? That it's wrong to add inconsistency? Gimmetoo (talk) 13:57, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

There is no contradiction. It isn't you own book you are writing, this is a wiki. You're just giving yourself stress if you're expecting instant perfection. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't expect instant perfection. And neither should you. An article whose references have developed with a predominant format - even if it has a few references that don't match - should conform to the predominant format if you're making the references "consistent", and should continue to follow that format if you're "filling out" other references. You haven't been doing that in the past, yet those are the first two points in DATERET. Gimmetoo (talk) 01:45, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

My role with the scripts is a bit like a street sweeper. I sweep up the leaves and rubbish into a small pile, then I gather up the small piles into a receptacle. In the meantime, leaves continue to fall; people continue to drop rubbish, so the job is never ending. Never you mind where I put the pile – it doesn't matter. It's the end result that counts. Rome wasn't built in a day. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:35, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Likewise per NODEADLINE, you can't expect that everyone will keep the article in "perfect" shape every time a new editor or IP adds a new reference in a different format, or as a bare URL. But enough with the similes. Can you answer the question: Do you think it is perfectly acceptable for you to "fill out references" using a date format that differs from the predominant format the references have developed with? Gimmetoo (talk) 02:44, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Never you mind where I put the pile of rubbish – it will all come out in the wash. If I'm the street sweeper, I'm not going to chase to find out who threw a particular piece of rubbish, or which particular tree a particular leaf fell from. I just care that the street isn't clean. I don't mind going back to sweep some more up tomorrow. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:14, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

How and what, precisely, are you sweeping out of the wiki? It seems to me and others that your intent is to sweep away MOSNUM-acceptable formats, and to do so in violation of DATERET. Gimmetoo (talk) 11:17, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sweeping out anything, but I just like the 'janitorial' analogy that's frequently used to describe gnomes – doing the jobs nobody want to do manually. Why do you feel the need to micromanage the site, and me in particular? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:34, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

You appear to be editing in violation of DATERET, and you appear to be unable to give direct answers to questions to resolve that. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:45, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

If people cared about filling in bare refs, I wouldn't have so many to do. And you come and tell me how to do it? If it's not micromanegement, then it must be harassment. Are you OK with that label? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:48, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

No. Not OK. Can you answer the question: Do you think it is perfectly acceptable for you to "fill out references" using a date format that differs from the predominant format the references have developed with? Gimmetoo (talk) 15:50, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

If you cannot be more constructive, and stop waving that stick around, then I really think this particular conversation is over, as far as I am concerned. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:53, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you please answer a simple question? Is that sort of edit perfectly acceptable to you, or not? Really, this isn't complicated. Answer and give an explanation. "No, in general, it's unacceptable. The exceptions would be ...". If you would do that, we might be able to have a conversation about it. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:22, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I've already stopped changing your precious ISO dates, and you seem to want to stop me from working with your threats and pestering. Can you say to me that you have never used a format other than the prevailing format in any article? Considering the very large number of editors who persistently mix formats, or place dates (or other formatting) in articles other than the prevailing format for that article, I would ask you to name all the editors, if any (except me), you have asked to desist because they may be infrininging WP:RETAIN? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 17:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

You are stating, as a matter of record, that as of the date of your last comment you will never changed any date formats in articles in violation of WP:RETAIN? What does WP:RETAIN mean in this context, with specific application to the concerns raised about your editing? Can you answer any questions regarding your apparent failure to observe WP:RETAIN? Can you engage in discussion of that in any way? Gimmetoo (talk) 21:59, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Australian English changed to British

Not sure why but could you explain why you're changing articles labeled Australian English to British English? If the articles were about Brits, this might make sense… but the articles are about Australians. So confused. :( --LauraHale (talk) 10:21, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• I apologise for the confusion. It appears others have put an Australian template on the article not realising what the 'British English' template was meant to denote. The script run to ensure alignment of spellings is designed to work equally well for Indian, Irish, Scottish, Australian, NZ variants. Please refer to this comment for clarification about its use. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Comment doesn't clarify. It says it is doing standard stuff but it doesn't explain WHY the script is changing it from Australian to British, despite the fact that your comment says there isn't a difference. Could you fix the script so it does what it does, but doesn't change it to say British English when it is actually Australian? (Or if it can't stop changing Australian English in the article to English, can you get it to ignore Australian English?) --LauraHale (talk) 10:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. If I understand you correctly, I'd like to assure you that my script vocabulary has been checked over by an Australian, and I'm comfortable that it doesn't actually change any spellings particular to Australian language to spellings that are not. I've just called for assistance to deal with the problem with the tagging you highlighted. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)--Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 00:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

So if I'm understanding you correctly, you're going to stop this and this where it changes {{Use Australian English|date=September 2011}} to {{Use British English|date=September 2011}}? I am not in need of reassurances that the bot understands and follows Australian English conventions, I am in need of reassurances that the bot won't arbitrarily change the language of an article. An article tagged Australian English should REMAIN tagged Australian English after your bot has come through. If your bot sees an article with {{Use Australian English}}, instead of changing it to '{{Use British English}}, can the bot comment on the talk page to initiate a proposal to change the type of English? If I have read Wikipedia's help correctly, people cannot change the language of an article with out first getting consensus to do so and your bot appears to bypass consensus by arbitrarily changing the language. --LauraHale (talk) 11:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe we are on the same page. My script –not bot, I hasten to add – has never, nor will it ever, touch upon any spelling differences that may exist between British and Australian English, but merely deal with the commonalities. The template itself only read by my script (as far as I know at present), and is otherwise totally hidden – it does not render any output in 'Read' mode. The issue about the tagging will be dealt with once I have technical expertise that I do not possess. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Your script changed the tagging to a different language, without first seeking consensus. Until the issue is dealt with, can you set your script to ignore any articles that are tagged with {{Use Australian English}}, as they bypass the consensus that {{Australian English}} says needs to happen before an article is changed to {{British English}}? Because we're clearly not on the same page, as this and this were done today and you didn't seek consensus to change the two from AU to UK. When you've sorted how to make changes with out changing the tagging, then awesome sauce, run it. --LauraHale (talk) 11:18, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I reiterate that my script doesn't change anything, except the tagging that only my script recognises. Now that tagging has been disabled. Problem is that from now, instead of replacing the Australian tag, the script will add a 'British English' tag, which seems to be preferable. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:30, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

LauraHale, forgive me for butting in here.

• You appear to have suggested Ohconfucius changes Australian spelling into something else. If that is your complaint, you are mistaken. He does the opposite. His edits turn non-Australian spellings into Australian. So he's your ally not your enemy.
• You appear to suggest that {use British English} created by Ohconfucius has a meaning other than that he intended. Since Ohconfucius was the creator of the template and the major user of it, it's a bit harsh to tell him that he's using it incorrectly.

The difference between international and local presentation sometimes upsets people but that's the nature of an international project. The compromise that seems to work well is for a binary distinction between SpellingA and SpellingB. It so happens that SpellingA and SpellingB have regional names but many users understand that the regional names do not map one-to-one with the regions. I hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 12:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• Now, it is only one word at issue between the two varieties, isn't it: "programme" (BrEng) and "program" (AusEng, which changed over during the 1980s). Tony (talk) 15:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
  • As far as I know, British English mostly switched as well. (Examples: [33] [34] [35].) A Google search in the .uk domain, gives results of significantly higher quality when searching for "computer program" than when searching for "computer programme". The second hit is an article about the NHS computer programme] – a programme run by the NHS and involving computers, not a program run by computers. -- PS: Apparently there is a difference after all, although it's more subtle than I expected. [36] Hans Adler 16:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Thanks Hans. I was aware of the different usages ('computer program' vs television programme'). The script does not act on that term, which is what gives me greater confidence that for the purposes of the script vocabulary, the {{Use British English}} will apply equally well to Australian. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:38, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Hans, now you've reminded me: the British do make this distinction between computer program and other types of programme, especially of the broadcasting type, but programmes more generally. In Australia, it's more a case of if you use -mme you're pretty old-fashioned, and must be ... old. Tony (talk) 06:50, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

  @Tony: In case you don't know, thong means quite a different thing in Britain than in Australia. :-) (Also, IIRC spellings such as organization with a Z are accepted in BrE – though the spellings with an S are about 1.5 times as common – but not in AuE.)
  ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 12:46, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

  A di M, "ize" is unfortunately used by old people in Australia, and even gets through to publication. Thong is an item of clothing as well as footwear, isn't it? But I thought this was about spelling. Tony (talk) 13:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

  The piece of footwear is called a flip-flop in Britain, so if you use thong with that meaning in Britain you're likely to be misunderstood. I know a few people to whom that happened. (More to the point, an article using thong with that meaning shouldn't be tagged as BrE, even if it never uses program in a non-computing sense.)
  ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 09:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

  My low-grade Encarta dictionary (US, but gives BrEng equivalents), says: "noun (1) a narrow strip of leather or other material, used esp. as a fastening or as the lash of a whip. (2) an item of clothing fastened by or including such a narrow strip, in particular (a) a skimpy bathing suit or pair of underpants like a G-string; and (b) another term for flip-flop (sense 1)." Isn't it readily understood in all varieties? Tony (talk) 10:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

  There are quite a few people who don't know the meaning 2b (which, FWIW, my English–Italian dictionary marks it as “AE, AUSTRAL.”), and at least one who doesn't normally use the meaning 2a (calling that a gee-string instead). (I knew a few more words which were common in Australia but rare or old-fashioned in Britain and Ireland or vice versa, but I can't remember any.)
  ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 20:37, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Engvar script notes

Haven't tried a full modification to the script yet, but to implement Australian English tagging, a good approach seems to be in updating function rmflinks() to add a regexTool line for Australia, which would call with a new "A" (Australian) parameter (SetEnglish("A")). The SetEnglish() function would add a case like this:

case 'A': Ohc_ENGVARprotectwords(); Ohc_ENGVARSimple(); zwords(); Ohc_ENGVARAedit_summary(); break;

Then add a case in function insert_Engvar(v) under the switch (v):

        case 'A':
           // Replace British/British (Oxford)/Canadian with Australian
           txt = txt.replace( reB, '');
           txt = txt.replace( reOx, '');
           txt = txt.replace( reC, '');
           // Prepend Australian template if not already tagged
           if( txt.search(reB) == -1 ) {
               txt = '\r\n' + txt;
           }
           break;

(You will likely need to add a "reA" for Aus Eng, and txt.replace that in the other cases)

Also note the call to a new edit summary function for Australia:

function Ohc_ENGVARAedit_summary(){
       //Add a tag to the summary box
	setoptions(minor='true');
	setreason('[[WP:ENGVAR|all Australian spelling]] by [[WP:EngvarB|script]]', 'append');
      // doaction('diff');
}

That involves a few updates, but shouldn't be excessively complicated to expand to add an Australian update, which could initially just call the British spelling fixes until some Aus-specific spelling differences emerge. Dl2000 (talk) 20:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks, I'll take that for a spin. More anon. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

01011001

I've reverted some of your edits to 01011001 with this edit. Please don't unlink things which are validly linked. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Friendly notification regarding this week's Signpost

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Formatting question

Quick question re 2011 Carlton Football Club season#Squad for 2011, which you recently did some reformatting. Is there a specific reason you put em-dashes in the Goals column and en-dashes in the Debut and Games columns? Otherwise I'll assume they should all be en-dashes and make the necessary changes for consistency. Aspirex (talk) 01:51, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for your query. There may have been a glitch in the script. It's quite unusual to see emdashes being used. My script will change spaced emdashed into endashes according to WP:MOSDASH, but as the Goals column did not have spaces on both side, it left the emdash alone. I have no view as to what should be used to denote the absence of data – whether hyphen, endash or emdash, but others at MOS may have an opinion. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:53, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Spaced en dashes recommended for lists and tables. Tony (talk) 03:59, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for helping out with the flood of new editors from Nanjing Normal University. bobrayner (talk) 18:02, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Issue with Sources.js

Hi Ohconfucius - just started using your Sources.js script. Could you please try it on Delaware State University? It appears that it tries to change publisher=''[[Associated Press|The Associated Press]]'' to agency=Associated Press |The Associated Press]], thereby breaking the wikilink. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:05, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

• I believe I have now fixed that bug. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Not sure if it was your edit to the article and/or the edits to your script, but it works fine on the article now. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:05, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
    • certainly, the piped link was unnecessary and caused a problem. If I had not made that edited, it would have returned "|work=[[Associated Press|The Associated Press]]" after my tweak. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:00, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Arch Bridge (Bellows Falls) revert

Please explain why you did what you did. I specified the date format as dmy. I linked what needed to be linked. I don't speak the language which uses n and m dashes, so I don't use them, but I'm open to that bit. I'm just looking to understand why you'd change established formatting for no apparent reason, and remove ALL links to certain things. - Denimadept (talk) 16:35, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

• I apologise for having changed the date format and not realising that there was a dmy tenmplate. There is no excuse for that. As to the other changes, including the superscripting of ordinals, repeated linking of 'United States' and 'US dollar', and use of hyphens to denote page ranges, I would invite you to consult the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and its sub-pages. You will find that these are specifically in breach of said guideline. Cheers. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I can live with that. I don't have to like it, but I can live with it. - Denimadept (talk) 02:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comprehension. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:59, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm looking for details such as non-use of superscripts and avoidance of html entities. Would you mind pointing me at this? I tried WP:MOS already. - Denimadept (talk) 06:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• Sure, it is at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Typography. The plethora of style pages gets confusing... --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:19, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

That it does! I see the bit about superscript, but not about html entities. I use html entities because they're easier to enter and parse. Also, html entities will always render correctly. I don't think that's the case for anything other than 7-bit ASCII. Just call me old-fashioned. I wonder if everyone has proper Unicode characters implemented. - Denimadept (talk) 06:27, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

There's something here. However, my scripts do very little html code substitution, if at all. If perhaps you mean an action like substituting '–' for "&ndash", then I guess I'm guilty. In fact, I actually rely on another script – a script I find extremely useful in analysing and placing the correct dash and spacing – which does that substitution (the great thing is that once the hard-coded dashes are in place, no further maintenance is necessary). --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it's more of a stylistic difference, really. As long as the results are the same, it doesn't matter. - Denimadept (talk) 08:02, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Request

Hi Ohconfucius, I see you've been doing a bunch of cleanup, and also adding dmy templates.

I'd like to request that you place these templates at the bottom of articles, rather than the top. See here if you want the reasons or want to discuss etc. Thanks! -Pete (talk) 06:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• I don't know how, but would be happy to, if someone can tell me how to write the instruction in javascript. In any event, I believe that if someone runs AWB on such a tagged article, the tag will be relocated to after the references section. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:28, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

It'll be done by a robot in time, but before then it might be confusing. - Denimadept (talk) 06:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Overunderdelinking

You said (I'm following up here since RJN hasn't even participated in the cited thread on his/her talk page, and will probably be archiving it soon — plus, I wasn't sure you were still watching that discussion since it's been so long since you left your comment): "I am happy to see implicitly that you do not challenge here unlinking of [[United States|United States of America]] … When it's the third degree of separation or greater, it ceases to become relevant". Hmm. It seems a bit odd to me that the link to "United States" can be considered so irrelevant when the fact that "Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States of America" is the very first fact about the city that appears in the Houston article. (!) Perhaps you would prefer to link that entire phrase to List of United States cities by population? (I saw something similar in some article recently, but I can't remember which one it was.) Anyway, I didn't mention that link simply because I decided to limit my remarks to only the single most relevant link that was removed in each case.

You also said, "you seem to subscribe to this sort of overlinking or bunching, and certainly de rigeur linking of geopolitcial entities." I can't tell from this allusion whether you actually misunderstood my "de rigueur" comment, so just in case: that description was referring to Germany's inclusion in encyclopedias, not to the linking of the term here at WP. That being said, I would, in fact, still prefer to see the U.S. linked to in this case (and actually, I would remove the superfluous "of America" from the text).

And finally, I'm not exactly sure how to respond to your remark, "'Relevance', by your definition, appears to be absolute", when I've clearly been trying to argue this whole time against unthinking adherence to "absolute" rules. (!) I'm not even sure what you mean by this. Are you implying that I think the "United States" is always "relevant" to the subject of an article when it appears in the article's text? I wouldn't say that, no. Should the term "United States" always be linked anywhere it appears (for the first time in an article)? I don't know. Probably not. I'm not prepared to make such an "absolute" statement, since it obviously depends on the context. As has been acknowledged a few times now, we simply disagree with which "contexts" call for a link. - dcljr (talk) 17:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Cocolee.jpg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Cocolee.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Skier Dude (talk) 05:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

GOCE drive newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors September 2011 backlog elimination drive update GOCE September 2011 backlog elimination drive progress graphs Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors September 2011 Backlog elimination drive! Here's the mid-drive newsletter. Participation We have had 55 people sign up for this drive so far, and 31 have participated. If you have signed up but have not yet copy edited any articles, please consider doing so. Every bit helps! It's not too late to join the drive if you have not already done so. Another great way to help out is to watch-list the Coordinators talk page and participate in the ongoing development of the Guild. Progress report So far, we have reduced the backlog by 75 articles, or about 19% of our goal. We have also cleared January 2010 off of the queue and are close to clearing off February and March. If each participant were to copy edit two articles from February and March 2010, they would be completely eliminated from the queue. Rollover words Several concerns have been brought up this drive about the usage of rollover words. Rollover words only count if they're from the previous drive. For example, if you received 1,000 rollover words in March and didn't participate in May, your rollover words return to zero. This is to encourage participation in multiple consecutive drives. Your drive coordinators – Diannaa, Chaosdruid, The Utahraptor, Slon02 and SMasters

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 05:30, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Scripting

I see you on my watchlist all the time and I very much enjoy somebody performing the arduous task of tidying loads of articles up. Thank you very much for that. I'm aware that common terms like countries get unlinked in the process and that's sensible enough. What surprised me, though, is that British counties also get the chop. I have no trouble believing that every half educated person anywhere in the world knows what England or London is, but I would have thought that the Counties of England are much less known. Is there somewhere that I can read up on what is considered to be well known enough that it should not be linked? I hope it's no trouble for you to point me in the right direction, as I don't want to hold you up with the most useful work that you are doing. Schwede66 10:06, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Schwede, I think there are two issues here: the first is that counties are not important in the scheme of things, compared with towns and cities. They are of minor consequence in terms of governance in the modern UK. The second thing is that where a town or city is specified adjacent, it's usual not to bunch the links and to rely on just the more specific one, which itself will have a link to the county, probably in its lead. Tony (talk) 10:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see. One learns something new each day. Thanks for the info - makes perfect sense. Schwede66 10:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. After more digging, I found an interesting BBC article from last year: Royal Mail set to delete counties from addresses Regards Lightmouse (talk) 10:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Does that mean it might spread westward? No more New York, New York? Tony (talk) 10:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Part of the problem in the UK is that counties are fuzzy terms. There have been many changes to boundaries and county names over time. Even at any one point in time, people and institutions maintain different definitions. My impression is that US county names and boundaries are more stable over time and between institutions. But I don't know. As far as I know, the term 'New York, New York' is <City><State> and is a consequence of US city names being made unique within states but not between states. Lightmouse (talk) 11:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• I find it slightly annoying that editors of British articles seem to have adopted the same practices of our brethren across the pond, imperatively appending a higher administrative division to accompany a city, or town. What's even more frustrating is the compulsion to add "England/Scotland" etc, as well as "United Kingdom". Even the UK is smaller in land mass than almost every US state, so this is really a fool's errand. Linking each of these in succession makes even less sense, so I usually link to the most focussed item in the sequence. I would point out that linked counties standing on their own do not get unlinked. Thanks Tony and Lightmouse for standing in temporarily. I'm pleased to offer any further explanations... --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:58, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Iowa communities edits

Hi, I am a patroller of all of the communities of Iowa and have noticed your many recent edits with the edit summary of style fixes, incl. dates, MOS:LINK and MOS:TEXT (most recently @ Cincinnati, Iowa). I looked at all of the related links and understand and agree with many of your changes, however I still question some of your de-linking of certain terms. Could you state your reasoning for de-linking the following terms: settlement_type = City (in infobox), the Iowa, United States (in lede paragraph), and these terms in the main article population density, per capita income, and poverty line (which I think should be changed to [[Poverty threshold|poverty line]] as it is a redirect). Also would you explain your reason in your edit of Centerville, Iowa de-linking of Italian-Americans in the lede paragraph while leaving others linked, for example: [[Swedish-Americans]], Italian-Americans, [[Croatian-Americans]], [[Albanian-Americans]]
I prefer not having fractured conversations so please respond here. I will watch your talk page for the duration of this conversation.
THANKS—RifeIdeas Talk 13:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• The two issues here are: 1)I think normally the most proximal (Appanoose County) is the most important, compared with state and country; the latter article supplies all the context and readers should be able to find the link to 'Iowa' as a topic of immediate relevance [to the county]. Having said that, I can be persuaded that a link to 'Iowa' is more directly relevant (or important to link to) than 'Appanoose County'; we should have link to one or the other, not both. There cannot be a single Wikipedia user in the entire world who would be in the least doubt about the meaning of the words "United States" here. 2) Where county–city–state–country are specified adjacent, it's usual not to bunch the links and to rely on just the more specific one. As to [[City]], [[population density]], [[per capita income]], and [[poverty line]], I consider them distracting, low-value links. The terms are generic and not germane (i.e. they are non-specific to the subject of the article); a twelfth-grader can be expected to know what they mean. The links at best provide a reference or definition, but seeing that WP is an encyclopaedia and not a dictionary, readers can easily look up those definitions for themselves. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I do not agree with you some of your reasons for de-linking words, especially your condescending 12th-grader remark as many Wikipedian readers could also be in grades 1–11. And it is possible that they live in countries that the United States is not that important and really may not know about the government subdivision called Iowa. A better way to improve the articles would be for you to rewrite the sentence to avoid bunched links which I agree should be avoided. Wikipedia linking is designed to help those who are learning not just those who are educated researchers.
You also seem to have avoided or forgot (word link has 7 headers and 4 subheaders in the Contents box, a little more than a dictionary description) answering my question about de-linking one ethnic group while leaving others linked.
Editing in good faith —RifeIdeas Talk 14:17, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't intending to be condescending to 12th-graders. On the contrary, I was crediting them with a certain level of education and maturity. Of course we have readers of all ages, but the premise of WP:Linking is that we should adopt a balanced approach to linking under certain assumptions. If we catered our content (including words to link to) on the assumption that a)WP is a dictionary and b) our average readership is 5, the vast majority of our articles would need complete rewriting for the lowest common denominator. Articles would not exist or need to be rewritten with words of no more than 3 syllables; most words other than the truly banal words would be linked to. Linking intelligently by definition implies selectiveness, it is based on the fact that not all subjects – whether people, buildings, organisations, nations, ethnic groupings – are equally well-known in the same way that Tuvalu is known to perhaps 5% of our readership but 99% would know of the United States. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

RifeIdeas, about the only items I agree might still be linked are the dual-nation ones (Italian-Americans, etc). We've long passed the time when people thought "City" should be linked; and US; and per capita income: these are common dictionary words (indeed, they're in Wikctionary). Please see the WP:PILLARS, which make it clear that "WP is not a dictionary". Let's keep our wikilinking system selective to retain its utility and strength for the readers (who are suprisingly unwilling to click on any links—so why plaster them with links?). Thanks. Tony (talk) 14:48, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

File:Elephant birth.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Elephant birth.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:04, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Linking of Somerset

Hi, I noticed on Saltford Brass Mill that you had delinked Somerset. I have been linking the county in lots of articles as I don't think it is well enough known outside of the UK & readers may wish to find out more about the context of the articles by finding out about the county. It also prevents confusion with Somerset County, New Jersey and all the other possible uses (Somerset (disambiguation)). Do you feel that Somerset shouldn't be linked?— Rod ^talk 07:32, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

• The specific reason 'Somerset' was unlinked was to eliminate a "bunching" or "chaining" of links, which tend to confuse readers and reduce the efficaciousness of links. Saltford, site of the mill, is already linked; Somerset, the county in which Saltford is located, is one degree of separation from the subject, so by both counts, it would seem to be reasonable to remove it. Please also refer to the Scripting thread above. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:01, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the explanation & I should have looked at the scripting discussion above. I'm not sure I agree about the reducing importance of counties (I thought a wiki guideline said to use Ceremonial counties of England - rather than newer unitary authorities etc). Do we have any evidence that "chaining" of links confuses readers? Has this change been discussed anywhere? As it is UK specific Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography or Wikipedia:UK Wikipedians' notice board might be suitable places to ask for opinions.— Rod ^talk 13:11, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

• This chain-linking issue applies just as much to US states, French departments, Spanish provinces as English counties. I think this is covered within Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Linking at Link_specificity and more specifically addressed by General points on linking style. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks I've had a look at that bit of MOS & my reading would be (& this is an example which could be applied to lots of Somerset articles) that links to Cannington, Somerset, England would be wrong but Cannington, Somerset, England would be considered OK?— Rod ^talk 13:34, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

• Editors vary in their opinion of these two alternatives. My strong preference is for the former, with less blue and thus a more distinctive link. However, you may prefer the longer display version. Tony (talk) 13:43, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

• Ok so if chaining is the only issue (assuming Somerset is not well enough known for a link to be useful to readers) then I think my preferred formulation would be "Cannington in the English county of Somerset". If that covers all the bases I think that will be my default in future.— Rod ^talk 13:54, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

• Whilst there is frequently the issue of an excessive number of links in the lead section, your solution is acceptable to me. But I would ask you to keep an eye on it, that it doesn't become "Cannington in the English county of Somerset". --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 00:03, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

About the supscript index of edition

Hello Ohconfucius. Is really the form "2nd" the correct one, instead of the one superscripted "2^nd"? If it is so, I think I should change many of the references I placed in the entries I contributed to. Thank you for your attention, and best regards Daniele.tampieri (talk) 20:57, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

• According to MOSNUM, the use of superscripted ordinals is not encouraged. I have therefore set about removing these where they are in use. It would be great if you could help with this, but it's equally OK if you don't. I will get around to them all eventually. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 22:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

From now on, I'll cease to use the superscripted ordinal notation and I'll progressively check the entries I contribute to in order to remove this kind of notation from their text. Thank you for your work and your advice. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 13:48, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot

Thanks for the barnstar! Fingers crossed for the upcoming GA nomination (and hopefully FA later). I know you prefer that I answer on my talk page, but I wasn't sure if you watch someone's page after giving them a barnstar Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:12, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

• You're welcome. It's definitely good work and well deserved. I'll keep an ey6 out for those nominations. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:20, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Access and archive dates in references

I reverted your edit at Fort Dodge, Iowa as if you looked farther down in WP:MOSNUM to MOS:DATEUNIFY sub header In references states Publication dates in article references should all have the same format. and you changed only a portion of the Access dates to the m/c/y format while leaving some in the YYYY-MM-DD format. MOS:DATEUNIFY also states Access and archive dates in references should be in either the publication date format, or YYYY-MM-DD, therefore there is no deviation from WP:MOSNUM to use the YYYY-MM-DD format. Many editors using the cite web template use the YYYY-MM-DD format in the references.
--RifeIdeas Talk 15:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Rhodesian Light Infantry

Thanks for doing a bit of a run through my recent work on this, it's really helpful. I'm going to be doing quite a bit more on this over the next while so feel free to do some more sometime. Cheers! —Cliftonian^{the orangey bit} 07:32, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• OK, thanks for the feedback. I'll keep an eye on developments. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:43, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Hex CSS colours

Hi. In this edit, you replaced #FFFFFF (six-digit capitalised) with #fff (three-digit lowercase) hex colour numbers. Is that proscribed by the MOS? If so, why? I've no strong feelings either way, it's just I've always habitually used the former, and wonder if the MOS says I should change my ways... DBD 12:09, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• No, it is not a style edit. This change was made by Reflinks. You will notice that I used the tool to insert 58 references in the article, and the tool changed all the hexes at the same time citations are being populated.The change seemed inconsequential to me as it doesn't change the rendering as far as I could tell. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:25, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough. No worries. DBD 12:39, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• I've posted a query here. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:42, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

yeah!

georgina_02 09:19, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

jessa

jessa — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessa02 (talk • contribs) 09:20, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Delinking script, mainly for FAC

Links are a constant problem for WP:Milhist at FAC. Specifically, two tools would save us countless man-hours:

• a script that highlights or removes (bringing up a diff screen) the second and third link to the same term
• a script that suggests adding a link if a term from a user-definable list appears in but is never linked in an article.

Can I bribe you to help with this, or do you know someone who could help? - Dank (push to talk) 13:23, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Dank, I've heard tell that Ohconfucius is on a very flaky connection at the moment. I'm sure he'll reply when things have been sorted technically. Tony (talk) 13:38, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Tony! - Dank (push to talk) 13:41, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll ask over at WT:FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 13:02, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

• I'm sorry. I had hoped to be able to log in this past week, but it hasn't been at all possible. It's done wonders for my Wikisanity, though. In response to your query, Great idea, but I have to fess up that my scripting skills are not up to such a task. Perhaps someone like Headbomb (talk · contribs) can help... --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

AfD

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cults and governments since you contributed to the article. Borock (talk) 13:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

GOCE drive newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors September 2011 backlog elimination drive report GOCE September 2011 Backlog elimination drive progress graphs Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors September 2011 Backlog elimination drive! We would like to thank all who participated in this drive. Here is the end-of-drive report. Participation There were 58 editors who signed-up for this drive, of which 42 participated. This is a slight increase from the July 2011 drive participation, where 39 out of 50 people that signed up participated. Thank you to everyone! Progress report During the drive, we reduced the backlog by 146 articles, or by about 4%. Overall we did well, especially considering the exceptionally large number of articles that were tagged during September. Thus far we have reduced the copy edit backlog by 4854 articles, or by about 58%. If we keep up our current rate of copy editing, the backlog should be reduced by 65–70% by the end of this year. End-of-drive results and barnstar information can be found here. Barnstars will be handed out this week. Once again, thank you for participating in the Guild's September 2011 Backlog elimination drive! Our next drive will be in November, and we hope to see you there! Your drive coordinators – Diannaa, Chaosdruid, The Utahraptor, Slon02 and SMasters

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 04:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

God is no more

Goodbye Steve.

'Jobness' is next to godliness...

I don't think many people realise you were the second coming.

Have a great afterlife. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:20, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

So how about the train station?

Is it FA? You're in the Army, now. No tattling...don't tell the Arbz.

Re:DYK

The main point is DYK admins are meant to help, not to punish. We can pull out any hook at any time and most authors won't even notice. No prose is perfect, and my articles were sometimes rewritten one way and then back while on the main page :-) - this is why we set some obvious criteria which are hard to question and easy to defend. Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 06:17, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

• I appreciate the explanation. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:20, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Bug in Fix news sources script

Hi Ohconfucius! I've been using your Fix news sources script for a few weeks, and normally I'm very pleased with the results. Today I tried it on the Paul McCartney article, and it wants to add an extra |location=Canada parameter in a citation for the Vancouver Sun. Is there some logic you can fix in your script? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

• Sure, it can be fixed... but I'm not quite sure what – isn't the Vancouver Sun from Vancouver BC, Canada? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 23:00, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
  • It sure is, but since the citation template already contains |location=Canada, your script doesn't need to add the same parameter. If I'm not being clear, could you please give it a try? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:40, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
    • I've put in a couple of extra lines to remove redundancies like the one referred to above. Hope this does the trick. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:10, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
      • Hi Ohconfucius! I've tried clearing my cache and rebooting, but your script is still trying to add the extra parameter. Are you experiencing the same issue when you try it? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:13, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
        • Had to tweak the script a little – it failed because there were two spaces after 'Canada'. Try it again now. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
          • Confirmed that your fix worked - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
            • Great! Thanks for the bug report. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:57, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	For your breathtaking number of edits, and the value of your contributions.... Hackerrye (talk) 13:15, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

• Appreciate it! Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Hackerrye beat me to it, though edit summaries like these are just about worth a barnstar in their own right! Also, you've convinced me to check out Reflinks. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Script assist for the Amadigi di Gaula article

Hi Ohconfucius. Could I request that you run your scripts over the Amadigi di Gaula article please? Thanks in advance. Cheers. GFHandel ♬  22:58, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. GFHandel ♬  02:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Jono Naylor prod

I've removed the prod from Jono Naylor and have outlined why on the article's talk page. If I've got that wrong, would you mind discussing it further there? Schwede66 10:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• you're right. I forgot to check the size of Palmeston North. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Well spotted

Thanks for the cite tag on Lemon Souffle. I remember thinking that that sentence was a bit iffy. It's the sort of statement that could esaily be demonstrated with original research, but of course that's not allowed. If I can't verify it, I'll rephrase it or take it outTigerboy1966 (talk) 17:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that should do it.Tigerboy1966 (talk) 17:57, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• Not quite sure still. The cited article only referred to Piggot's one win on her that season (1994); it does not mention him being his sole rider, nor who trained her. And BTW, what does "trained at two and three" mean? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:34, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Changed to "ages two and three". All the horse's races are reliably refed and all give LP as the jockey.Tigerboy1966 (talk) 06:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• Impeccable! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:39, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Ping

Hi Ohconfucious, I've replied at Template:Did you know nominations/Ratih Hardjono; hopefully the new source is up to par for this. Still crossing my fingers on The Shirelles! Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Script cootie?

You might want to check your scripts to avoid adding contradictory {{Use xxx English}} templates e.g. [37] Dl2000 (talk) 00:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Ah, thanks. I remembered asking you about it (see above). However, the code Or perhaps some addition or modification I made to it had a fatal error, so I simply removed the code thinking I would look at it some other time. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

The Date Script

It has stopped working for me; it tags the article but makes no changes. I have uninstalled, reinstalled, refreshed, logged out and logged in, to no avail. Radiopathy •talk• 00:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry, took it off-line for a few fixes. It should be back now. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Hong Kong meetup 58

In the area? You're invited to
Hong Kong Meetup # 58
	Date: October 21
	Time: 7PM
	Place: Think Cafe, Unit B, 19/F, Kyoto Plaza, 491-499 Lockhart Road, Causeway Bay
prev: Meetup 57 - next: Meetup 59

SusanLai (talk) 06:01, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Mark Holiday bio page

Hello dear Ohconfucius. My name is Angela, and I manage Trendsetter's (Mark Holiday) bio page as well as his press contacts, I'm his publicist. Thank you for your help in improving the bio page, and Please let me know what is wrong with his bio, and I will correct the issue. I'm in touch with Mark Holiday personally, so I can get any information and sources first hand. Thank you for your cooperation. Best Regards Angela — Preceding unsigned comment added by Electronicmusicprofessor (talk • contribs) 13:19, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• I'm glad you have made yourself known. It was obvious that the article was produced by someone close to him. One of the most fundamental problems is that all the information is sourced to himself and are not independent, so this needs to be corrected with urgency, otherwise the article will be deleted. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:29, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for clarifying this case for me. I now done re-editing his bio, added more additional sources and replaced most of his personal sources with independent, using my personal knowledge and "Google" research. Please check his bio page again and let me know if you have any more concerns. Thank you. Angela — Preceding unsigned comment added by Electronicmusicprofessor (talk • contribs) 02:05, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for this. ★Jivesh 1205★ (talk / ♫♫Give 4 a try!!!♫♫) 07:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks and make acquaintance.

Hi Ohconfucius, thanks for your comment on my page. I also discovered you're a multilingual like myself! I'm very glad to discover other linguists. Do you mind I ask where you were born/grew up to have both English and Chinese as native languages? Also dónde vives? ¿Por que hablas español tambien? Je peux "voler" ton "info box" de langues? Btw, you may reply in any of the 4 languages other than Cestiny, which I guess is Czech? Mistakefinder (talk) 20:15, 22 October 2011 (UTC) How did you make the Babel info box? Can I edit your code/template and remove Cestiny? Mistakefinder (talk) 20:25, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Some falafel for you! (waeva tht is)

o u probably aredy kno who dis is xD Sakura818 (talk) 22:26, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

OTD RFC

I have opened an RfC related to an issue on which you recently commented: Wikipedia_talk:Selected_anniversaries#Year_wikilinking_in_OTD. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

DYK for 2011 Lufeng city riot

Well done, thanks from the DYK project Victuallers (talk) 00:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting glitch in your script

Thanks for building the script I use to fix dates. I thought you would be interested in this, where the image was broken by the script edit. Best wishes, --John (talk) 01:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the report. It was a logical error which I have now rectified. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Gosh, that was fast. Thank you. --John (talk) 01:40, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
    • You just caught me starting the day. Hope yours is/was good. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
      • It's been ok so far thanks; just sitting down with a glass of wine and about to eat my evening meal. Have a good one yourself! --John (talk) 02:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

New Page Patrol survey

New page patrol – Survey Invitation Hello Ohconfucius! The WMF is currently developing new tools to make new page patrolling much easier. Whether you  have patrolled many pages or only a few, we now need to  know about your experience. The survey takes only 6 minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist us in analyzing the results of the survey; the WMF will not use the information to identify you. If this invitation  also appears on other accounts you  may  have, please complete the  survey  once only.  If this has been sent to you in error and you have never patrolled new pages, please ignore it. Please click HERE to take part. Many thanks in advance for providing this essential feedback. You are receiving this invitation because you  have patrolled new pages. For more information, please see NPP Survey. Global message delivery 12:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

strong national ties

Hello, Ohconfucius. You have new messages at Robertgreer's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Templates Cat use mdy dates and Cat use dmy dates

Hello, Ohconfucius. You have new messages at Robertgreer's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

NZR DL Class

Hello. Please don't remove URL prefixes etc from site web links - ie "www.foo.com" and "foo.com" are different addresses - even if often one will resolve to another - this is not guranteed -see link in Template_talk:URL#Exlusion_of_prefix_is_technically_and_in_some_cases_practically_wrong for an example. Imgaril (talk) 17:00, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• FYI, website addresses do not belong in the |work= parameter, which italicises. Please refer to {{citation}} and WP:ITALICS. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

On the heterogeneity of Chinese dissidents

I don't know why you posted it where you did, but this article[38] was interesting. It seems to reflect the debates within Chinese dissident communities between those emphasizing pragmatic vs. deontological approaches. Eva Pils has written on this in the context of rights lawyers (article is here, if you're interested) Best, Homunculus (duihua) 21:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks. I posted the LXB story because I was working with it here, and thought it would put an end to the 'polarity' that Olaf was keen to pigeon-hole me into. I'll have a look at your article when I have a few free hours. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Script bug report

Seems it's adding BrEng tags on top of AusEng's Dl2000 (talk) 00:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, just took a look at the routine in question, though I haven't had a chance to try any script tests yet. However, I noticed that you assigned reB first to the Australian regexp, but then wrote that over with the British one. What is needed is a separate reA variable for the Australian regexp. Then it would be applied to cases other than itself. Also, in each case, all other variants should be substituted. The coding could be changed to something like this (though I haven't tested this yet, and it may be subject to formatting issues, suggested changes in blue):

function insert_Engvar(v){
	// Add a template to the article identifying English variant
	var box = document.editform.wpTextbox1;
	var txt = box.value;
 
        // Build a string with "Month YYYY"
       var dateobj=new Date();
       var month=new Array("January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December");
       var datestr= month[dateobj.getMonth()] + ' ' + dateobj.getFullYear();

       // Matches Use Australian English or EngvarA
       var reA = new RegExp('{{[_ ]*(?:[Uu]se[_ ]+Australian[_ ]+English|[Ee]ngvarA)[_ ]*(?:|\\|[ ]*date[ ]*=[^{}\\|]*)[ ]*}}', 'gi');
       // Matches Use British English or EngvarB
       var reB = new RegExp('{{[_ ]*(?:[Uu]se[_ ]+British[_ ]+English|[Ee]ngvarB)[_ ]*(?:|\\|[ ]*date[ ]*=[^{}\\|]*)[ ]*}}', 'gi');
       // Matches Use British (Oxford) English or EngvarOx
       var reOx = new RegExp('{{[_ ]*(?:[Uu]se[_ ]+British[_ ]+\\(Oxford\\)[_ ]+English|[Ee]ngvarOx)[_ ]*(?:|\\|[ ]*date[ ]*=[^{}\\|]*)[ ]*}}', 'gi');
       // Matches Use Canadian English or EngvarC
       var reC = new RegExp('{{[_ ]*(?:[Uu]se[_ ]+Canadian[_ ]+English|[Ee]ngvarC)[_ ]*(?:|\\|[ ]*date[ ]*=[^{}\\|]*)[ ]*}}', 'gi');

       switch (v) {
           case 'A':
           // Replace existing variants with Australian
           txt = txt.replace( reOx, '{{Use Australian English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           txt = txt.replace( reB, '{{Use Australian English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           txt = txt.replace( reC, '{{Use Australian English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           // Prepend Australian template if not already tagged
           if( txt.search(reA) == -1 ) {
               txt = '{{Use Australian English|date=' + datestr + '}}\r\n' + txt;
           }
           break;
	  case 'Ox':
           // Replace with British (Oxford)
           txt = txt.replace( reA, '{{Use British (Oxford) English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           txt = txt.replace( reB, '{{Use British (Oxford) English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           txt = txt.replace( reC, '{{Use British (Oxford) English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           // Prepend British (Oxford) template if not already tagged
           if( txt.search(reOx) == -1 ) {
               txt = '{{Use British (Oxford) English|date=' + datestr + '}}\r\n' + txt;
           }
           break;
        case 'B':
           // Replace with British
           txt = txt.replace( reA, '{{Use British English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           txt = txt.replace( reOx, '{{Use British English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           txt = txt.replace( reC, '{{Use British English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           // Prepend British template if not already tagged
           if( txt.search(reB) == -1 ) {
               txt = '{{Use British English|date=' + datestr + '}}\r\n' + txt;
           }
           break;
        case 'C':
           // Replace with Canadian
           txt = txt.replace( reA, '{{Use British English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           txt = txt.replace( reB, '{{Use Canadian English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           txt = txt.replace( reOx, '{{Use Canadian English|date=' + datestr + '}}');
           // Prepend Canadian template if not already tagged
           if( txt.search(reC) == -1 ) {
               txt = '{{Use Canadian English|date=' + datestr + '}}\r\n' + txt;
           }
           break;
       }

	box.value = txt;
}

Dl2000 (talk) 03:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

• Ah yes, silly me. I had meant to create 'ReA' and not a second 'ReB'. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I have now created a button for Australian English. The vocabulary engine for this is identical to British English. My question is that, when I run the 'British' script button on an article you processed using Australian, how can I get the script recognise the Aus template and update it, and not to insert British template? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
    • Hmmm... seems the script is designed to override existing templates. Sometimes that may come in handy e.g. to fix British articles mistagged as another variant. However, to have the script respect an existing variant tag, you'd likely need separate button, one to stop if an existing format is applied, and another to override. One way might be to add an override parameter to the function (insert_Engvar(v, override)) - a 1/true override value would run the function as it does now; 0/false on a variant would check if another variant tag exists in the article, and if so, stop the conversion e.g. run British without override, first test if reA, reC or reOx are present, if so return out of the function; otherwise, proceed to tidy up for British English. Not sure how to signal that the function stopped on an existing tag, though, other than not to make any changes (perhaps append an edit summary code?). I haven't had a chance to work on scripting the concept out yet, though. Dl2000 (talk) 14:50, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
      • Not to worry for now, it's not urgent. Please just come back when you think of how to do it. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

• • • • • Check this function out:

// type - the full word of the English variant type to be tagged to
function Dl2_EngTag(type) {
    var txt=document.editform.wpTextbox1;
 
    // If there's an existing tag, prompt to override
    langvars = new Array("American", "Australian", "British (Oxford)", "British", "Canadian", "Indian", "Irish", "Pakistani" );
    var curryyyymm = Dl2_CurrMY();
 
    for (i = 0; i < langvars.length; i++)
    {
        var rxTemp = new RegExp('{{[_ ]*(?:[Uu]se[_ ]+' + langvars[i] + '[_ ]+English|[Ee]ngvarB)[_ ]*(?:|\\|[ ]*date[ ]*=[^{}\\|]*)[ ]*}}', 'gi');
        if ((langvars[i] != type) && (txt.value.search(rxTemp) >= 0))
        {
            if (confirm(langvars[i] + ' English tag already exists - override?'))
            {
                var newtag='{{Use ' + type + ' English|date='+curryyyymm+'}}';
                txt.value=txt.value.replace(rxTemp, newtag);
            }
            else
            {
                return;
            }
        }
    }
 
    // add tag if not already present (or changed above)
    var rxpdd = new RegExp("{{Use " + type + " English", "gi");
    var dflagfound = txt.value.search(rxpdd);
    if (dflagfound == -1)
    {
        txt.value='{{Use ' + type + ' English|date='+curryyyymm+'}}\r\n'+txt.value;
    }
}

This is called with the full language name e.g. Dl2_EngTag("British"). The key is in the langvars array, which is a list of the full variant names, which are looped through in the first section to check for existing language tags. If a different tag is found that the variant to be applied, the script will prompt to override and change the tag - OK/Cancel. The last part will add a new tag if none was available. Updating a single langvars array should be better to maintain that having to update numerous cases. Dl2000 (talk) 21:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit problem

Hi, in this edit you have incorrectly changed the infobox field organization to organisation. I assume this is to do with British form for articles but is incorrect for field names. Keith D (talk) 00:20, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Another bug in your script

Your script is replacing the {{United States}} navbox with the words "USA".[39][40][41][42] Please fix this before you run your script on any more US state articles. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:01, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the notification. I realised this a few days ago, and it has been changed. Hopefully, it shouldn't happen again. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:10, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

FG

I agree that I can't keep up with my present workload, and it is also something that I wouldn't want to do; but I felt it was appropriate to make the offer, and if the offer was taken up I would honour my commitment. While understanding that exasperation can lead to blocking, I am not convinced that is always the best approach. Something else I considered was putting full protection on all Falun Gong articles, and any edits only being made by admins after consensus had been found on the talkpages. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

• Noted. I have never doubted your sense of commitment. I guess I'm just too scarred by my forays into editing FLG articles that I can see no good ever to come out of it. As I have no intention of going back there in a hurry, it's kind of moot for me. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Red cats

What's happening..

1. Red cats will always display
2. Non-empty red-cats should normally be created by Femto Bot fairly quickly after they get a member (say within half an hour or so)
3. Femto Bot partly powers this process of the "Progress boxes" (clean up cats get created on a time basis as well)
4. In this case, the progress boxes are showing the red cats where they are transcluded, but not (util I purged them) on the actual progress box page.

In summary some hitherto unseen type of caching was breaking stuff a bit.

Rich Farmbrough, 15:50, 1 November 2011 (UTC).

Just curious...

... if I was missing something here [43]? Dl2000 (talk) 02:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

• I don't see anything; the edit summary gives no clues, and the dates are in mixed dmy/mdy. Maybe the person was working offline, an old version. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:31, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
• Ah, "eyes passim", as they say in Private Eye! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:43, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Mark Clifford

Hi, seems that you have deleted some material that has been on my Wikipedia page for some time, specifically the material on ESF (updated) and other activities. What's the rationale? It seems that you have also moved the order around. Again, what is the thinking behind the changes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkCliff (talk • contribs) 08:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

• Actually, it's technically a Wikipedia page about you, and not "your wikipedia article". Please take note that Wikipedia is not your personal webspace. I did some tidying up to regroup material. We should not have details in the lead that are not in the body; we do not generally include the less important highlights of a biography in the lead. Other changes included adding {{cn}} templates requesting further citations, attributed a weasel word, removed trivial details about sundry article contributions. Also note that there are two issues with the ESF document – a) it is a primary source and b) it is no longer accessible. It is unclear if you were appointed governor by some party, or elected as a parent governor. The first is significant, the latter is considerably less so. I trust this answers your questions. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Some bubble tea for you!

Cheers, OhC! The Shirelles has just become a Good Article! Thanks for the encouragement. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

＊Congratulations! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Image gallery note + attempting re-engineering

Not sure if you're protecting against image/file names within {{Image gallery}} blocks, but that can sometimes be a concern. [44]

Meanwhile, I'm working on a new concept for the formatting script which will first divide an article into various sections then treats each section's text according to its function (template, link/image/category, quotation, normal body text, etc). That way, there would be no need to apply the "protection racket" to media file names, titles, blockquotes, etc. Will probably take several days to move it beyond a crude parser function towards a next-gen MOSNUM script. Dl2000 (talk) 04:08, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the heads up. I noticed some fairly massive changes to your script, but I have not studied them in detail; mots of them I could only guess at what you're trying to do. Image gallery is not at present protected in my script – I wasn't even aware of its existence – so you're right this needs to be incorporated. The protection of my recently-updated script has some enhancements, but is not radical like you're suggesting. Sometimes, I wish I could use AWB, which has some mechanism to avoid these oft-encountered false positives. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:19, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

• • After many weeks, User:Dl2000/DateFix2.js is getting more robust. It will avoid refactoring certain portions such as quotations, even standard double-quote ones. Naturally, there is a risk of mismatched quotations gumming up the works, but can be mitigated by assuming the quotation ends with the paragraph, and other measures. Music articles also present some fun things (e.g. 7") as would measurements (5'11" - which should arguably be refactored with {{convert}}). More testing and refinement to come... Dl2000 (talk) 04:55, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
    • It's great progress being able to use the script confident in the knowledge that false positives are history. However, I find it slightly annoying that the script generates an error message at every instance of mismatched inverted commas (quotation marks) – if there are 3 cases, three separate dialogue boxes pop up. I know that the appearance of the boxes does not stop the script run, but the error messages in this current form are quite useless and do not allow for correction – the description of the problem disappears as the 'OK' box is clicked on. So far, my tests indicate that the date conversions are correct notwithstanding the error dialogue boxes. I don't know if there is a way around it, but I think it would be better if this information is recorded somewhere else for later action, perhaps dumped into a day log of some sort. Alternatively, as the detection seems to be fairly accurate, perhaps some code to actually fix the quote marks too? OTOH, I don't want to make it too complex to write, or too bureaucratic to follow up on... so perhaps simply add a (newly designed) inline cleanup tag indicating mismatched quote marks? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:05, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

• • • • Agreed that the individual mismatch messages should be replaced on the script and thanks for testing that. Those are starting to annoy the developer as well <g>, although the boxes often have enough text to allow the mismatches to be located and eliminated. Note that some mismatch cases can cause some dates to be left intact i.e. script could not determine when the quotation area ended. Will see if that behaviour can be rewritten soon, although the Christmas/New Year's situation will alter priorities over the next several days. A single summary warning message at the end may still be useful if there was at least one mismatch in the mix, with inline tags planted as suggested. Not sure if every possible false positive has been eliminated, and there are bound to be a few false negatives (something about erring on the side of caution). Dl2000 (talk) 03:43, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
        • A few tweaks were made to DF2 to reduce the mismatch prompts somewhat. Still found some glitches, especially in handling multiple ordinals. Holiday season is in play, so development work will be limited for several days. Merry Christmas. Dl2000 (talk) 02:48, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Dashes in image names

Hi, I realise that it's six weeks after the event, but I don't see any related threads above. The problem (which I've only just noticed) is that this edit broke the gallery by changing - into – in two image names: File:Bournemouth , Bournemouth Railway Station - geograph.org.uk - 1123903.jpg is valid, whereas File:Bournemouth , Bournemouth Railway Station – geograph.org.uk – 1123903.jpg isn't. These are filenames, so like wikilinks should remain inviolate: please verify that your script will no longer make such changes. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:21, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

• Duly noted, thanks. As it's a third party script, it's not something that I can fix. However, I have notified the script author, and I will look out for such instances in future. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:02, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Question about Fix news sources script

Hi Ohconfucius! When I ran your Fix news sources script (as I do now after every time I use Reflinks) on Paul Rodgers, the script tries to remove a link to Billboard that is not inside a citation or reference. Could you please let me know why it's trying to remove this link? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:39, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Just tried it again today and it's still trying to remove the link to Billboard (magazine) (but not the two links to Billboard magazine. Why is it trying to remove the link? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

So this doesn't get missed

See #Date_formatting_issue_and_automated_editing above. Gimmetoo (talk) 18:18, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Falun Gong

Would welcome your input regarding the possibility of an article specifically about Falun Gong in China currently at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion/Falun Gong work group#Falun Gong Inside China and Falun Gong outside China. John Carter (talk) 21:25, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

St. Xavier High School (Cincinnati)

Date formats notwithstanding, I'm curious about the way your script has delinked presumably common words and proper names. It certainly makes sense to reduce the link density in articles such as this one, which was created back when Wikipedia linked much more liberally. However, any automated approach is going to stomp over links to common words that may be contextually relevant, such as "high school" in an article about a high school. Moreover, the script makes some bizarre moves such as turning:

Brazil, Germany, Montenegro, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, and Vietnam

into:

Brazil, Germany, Montenegro, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, and Vietnam

I've gone back and restored links I thought were contextually important. But could the script by any chance be made to at least recognize lists and treat their items consistently? Thanks for your attention to detail.

 – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 07:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

That's a good point, and I'll take care to introduce more specific links like that where possible. In any case, perhaps the script could avoid chains that contain a conjunction before the last link. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 08:03, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I kept your un-superscripting in general but restored the superscript in the title of a citation, where the original work had used a superscript. I'm not sure there's much a script can do to discern this case, since it's specific to the work being cited. The word "overzealous" was a reference to the delinking of some list items, as I had thought it was a bug rather than an intentional change. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 16:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Sanjan - Gujarat

Hi, my father was born in Sanjan and i would like to know where you have found your information from? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samera2011 (talk • contribs) 15:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Slight hiccup in MOSNUM dates.js

Greetings. I was using your otherwise excellent script "MOSNUM dates.js", and noticed that it tried to change "30 May.<ref>" to "May. 30<ref>" when I clicked "Body dates to mdy" on the LeRoy Myers article. I have left the article alone so you may see for yourself. The script had worked flawlessly on many, many similar articles before that hiccup. It's not a show-stopper. Chris the speller ^yack 05:47, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

• Ah, thanks for that. Interesting bug you discovered. First time I've come across that problem too. It involved the script treating 'May.' as an abbreviation, as it would 'Dec.', where that treatment would have bene correct. Of course, it resulted in the logical error because May doesn't get abbreviated. I've now fixed it. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:11, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, that was quick. Thanks much. Chris the speller ^yack 06:15, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Just happened to be on line. :-) Have a good one! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:18, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Broken cite template

Howdy. With your edit here, you broke a cite template because a title was not apparently available. In the future you might consider using "Unknown" or something similar. The line I am referring to is in the Shows section and is regarding Caribana FESTIVAL. I have "fixed" the problem.--Rockfang (talk) 03:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for letting me know. I actually think there is a problem with that url, because I get a 'forbidden' message when clicking on it. Somehow Reflinks adds the cite web template (instead of treating it as a dead link) but then has no title to input, leading to the error. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of I-Mockery

I have removed the prod tag you placed on I-Mockery, as per policy an article that has been discussed at AfD – as this one was in 2006 – is permanently ineligible for prod. Compliance with policy is the only reason I did this, and I have no opinion one way or the other on the merits of deletion. If you still wish to pursue deletion, feel free to open another AfD. I will most likely not opine in such a discussion. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 15:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Templates Cat use dmy dates and Cat use mdy dates

Rich Farmbrough has graciously indicated the way to modify your script to detect the presence of a {{Cat use dmy dates}} or {{Cat use mdy dates}} tag in a category. — Robert Greer (talk) 01:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Empty Infobox lines

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. Regarding your edits to University of Silicon Valley Law School, it is recommended that you use the preview button before you save; this helps you find any errors you have made, reduces edit conflicts, and prevents clogging up recent changes and the page history. Thank you. FYI, the infobox ended up with problems on the students and faculty lines. (Is it a fault with the bot?) Even so, thanks for the clean-up.--S. Rich (talk) 14:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• I was initially quite selective with the removal of parameters, and found that a lot of useless ones them remained. Then I tweaked the code to remove all empty parameters, and it seems to go too far in the other direction. I'll play with it again and see if I can come up with something more sensible. Thanks. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:03, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Was it WP:REFLINKS that caused the error? I am unclear. It looks like WP:REFLINKS just tweaks references. Did it tweak the infobox too? (I'm expanding my WP bot usage, so figuring this technical stuff out will help.) Thanks. --S. Rich (talk) 15:17, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• It was caused by a change I made to my script and not by Reflinks. Sorry for the confusion. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm don't think removing these empty lines is helpful (whether or not they are visible). When editing, the empty line tells editors such info can be displayed and may prompt them to look for it. When they do find the data, they know exactly where to put it - plus a few keystrokes. When the empty lines are displayed in the read mode, they signal the reader that such info might be available, but isn't. In the law school articles, many readers want to know what the ranking (USNW), ABA status, coordinates, etc. When those lines in the profile are blank, it tells them there is no ranking or ABA data. I recommend leaving empty infobox template lines in place.--S. Rich (talk) 15:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• I take your point. Thanks. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Kiangsu and Chekiang Primary School

The article Kiangsu and Chekiang Primary School has been proposed for deletion. The proposed-deletion notice added to the article should explain why.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. JamesBWatson (talk) 22:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Millstone River Photonickers

Hello Ohconfucius. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Millstone River Photonickers, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: This isn't clear cut enough for G11 - take to AfD if you think WP:CORP isn't met. Thank you. SmartSE (talk) 16:10, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Matt Bielby Afd

Not sure what's happened but your nomination is pointing to the AfD from 4 yrs ago rather than the new one; same on today's log. AllyD (talk) 17:19, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal

As you're proposing a merge for 20 different sports and what amounts to 40 current articles and another 160 classification articles possible, with their own world records and categories for it, can you please explain in detail why they should be merged NOW before going further with all 40? --LauraHale (talk) 03:49, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

*pokes* Can you stop before you do all 40 and put up your rationale? If you don't post a rationale, given the world records for most of these, then I'm going to do a roll back. --LauraHale (talk) 03:53, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• There is a huge overlap of content, and there's no question to my mind that they ought to be merged in some manner. I'm proposing to make a logical merger that groups together the largest amount of common content. The tags are to solicit views about such a course. The community may agree to merging them into 1, 3 or n articles, but consensus will not be known until that discussion is had. You are of course welcome to comment at the appropriate venue. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:56, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
• Don't threaten a rollback, or you will certainly be abusing the tool. I'm not a vandal. Are you suggesting that there ought to be 200 articles? ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Doing a merge proposal for 40 articles with no rationale provided and inviting discussion seems a bit bad. If there are world records, medical/physical differences between classifications that are well documented, the classification exists that is unique to the sport, there is a Paralympic medal for it, yes, there should be an article for it. You're proposing an article that would involved something like 600 different world record types at least, where the classification has medals, and different classifications. The classifications are discussed in a variety of sources. Classification medal events at specific games are eligible for individual event related articles at the Paralympics. I'd like to see the proposed merged type article first, and I'd like to see a rationale for it. --LauraHale (talk) 04:03, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• It still makes no sense to have it structured in the current manner. It would be better and more encyclopaedic to have a central text that groups together common elements and then diverging from there into 'List of world records in [category of disabled sport]'. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:09, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Your merge proposal suggests these classifications are overseen by the IPC, and that isn't actually true and the sources don't support it. The classification process from sport to sport is different. The classification test is often different from sport to sport. The classifying body is different from sport to sport. The sports classifications often have their own individual world records. The type of disability that each classification covers is different. Yes, lots of common elements but that could change a lot if more work was put into the article. --LauraHale (talk) 04:30, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for pointing that out; however, the text in the articles seems to suggest otherwise. Someone at DYK suggested simply Disability sport classifications. Maybe that's better. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Request for copyedit

Hi OhC, I know you sometimes copyedit articles before they go to FAC, so could you take a look at 1740 Batavia massacre? I'm hoping to nominate it soon, but I'd prefer to have a fresh set of eyes on the prose. Thanks in advance! Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

• Sure, I'll go to tackle it. Sorry I've been a bit busy this week. Looks like thinks will calm down next week. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:28, 17 December 2011 (UTC).

• Thanks a lot! Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:51, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• I've started on the first section. Keep an eye on it, and don't hesitate to change it if I introduce errors or change the meaning. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot. I'll check in the morning (my time, about 7 hours from now) Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• The background section looks and reads much better, thank you. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:11, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

• So do you think she's ready to go? Mark Arsten and yourself seem to have improved it considerably. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:27, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

• That's only two sections. I see that Mark has also been copyediting it. Leave it with me/us for a couple more days, so I can look at the other sections as well. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:32, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

• Alright, thanks. Might as well leave it for after new year's... doubt I'll have enough feedback at FA over the holiday. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks for cleaning up :).

Boud (talk) 20:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Market Church, Halle

Hello ohConfucius, could you take a look here, and improve our English? Taksen (talk) 14:56, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggest Correction to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GuruGanesha_Singh_Khalsa"

The footnoted reference to "Cat's Cradle" leads to an unrelated site - a club in North Carolina of the same name but having no other connection to Cat's Cradle. A better link would be http://soundcloud.com/assabetstrings/sets/cats-cradle-friends/ . These are actual recordings of the band.

Regards, Harry Norris (bass player for Cat's Cradle) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.252.103.148 (talk) 17:16, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks. I've now amended it. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:22, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Qigong article

When you get a chance could you please see how you feel the Qigong article is progressing? We have tried to provide solid structure, clean neutral text, and reputable references. Perhaps you could offer your assessment of the article's neutrality on the Talk:Qigong page. Vitalforce (talk) 19:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Olympus scandal

Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Kim Jong il

It seems that the current blurb wasn't what was approved, and a "new article" with recycled content was added to the repertoire and linked in the blurb. In light of the problems with the Death and funeral of Kim Jong-il article, I suggest that you reverted to that blurb on ITN. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:42, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Problems like what? There was a paragraph that you didn't like, but you removed it. So, what's the problem now? The alternative is that the lion's share of that information will be squeezed into the Kim Jong-il article, which may or may not be okay. But, how the parent article is now, at least -- with a splintered section -- is worse than how the daughter article is. -- tariqabjotu 02:55, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there is a problem with the structure of the bio, which could do with reorganising. and I agree that any more content there may well overburden the article. But condolences and bullshit rhetoric are hardly encyclopaedic! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:58, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

inre Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/How to Boil a Frog

The article How to Boil a Frog has had an interesting history after it was started back in 2007 to be about (back then) a planned film... afterwhich COI editors added a lot of stuff about the website to the article. Talk abou coatracking. But now that the film is out and still screening and getting attention, the bulk od material about the website has no place in a film article. Your comment at the AFD "why don't we delete and start from scratch without the baggage" got me thinking that it's sometimes better to fix than delete. To that end I have done some major sectioning and cleanup to separate the film information from the website information... and will concentrate on expanding and sourcing ABOUT the film before removing the entire extaneous section that deals only with the website. Thanks for your insights. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 04:56, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

• I'm glad it's drawn some attention so now it is already much better. Thanks for your efforts. you might have noticed that I've withdrawn the nomination. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Just came online and did. Appreciations. And do you concur that the website stuff should either go or be drastically reduced? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 17:27, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
    • I'd say so. The website is a spinoff and not notable AFAICT, and as such is a WP:Coatrack. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
      • Oops. See you already addressed the issue. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} I see that it first became a coatrack back in the article's early days when the film was still in the planning stages... and that the rack grew in the interim. Will be handling it. :) Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 06:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
        • Yes, I think that the article's much cleaner now. If somebody thinks the website is notable, they can always create a new article with those details. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:35, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Happy Christmas

	Season's greetings!
	I hope the holiday season is relaxing and fulfilling, and that 2012 will be fruitful for you. --John (talk) 00:44, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Season's tidings!

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 03:23, 25 December 2011 (UTC).

Thanks for the help

Thanks for making the corrections to the article "Augusteum and Lutherhaus". I was not aware of some of the proper style elements and formatting, as it was my first article. I admire your ability to make so many little changes to so many articles. That would be a little mind-numbing for me! Oh, and it is very impressive that you speak so many languages. Props for that!DopplerRadioShow (talk) 08:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Blue links for claity not ambiguity

I have came across your edits in articles relating to Ireland that effect WP:IMOS. I understand you are removing blue links for clarity but please respect the guidelines of the relevant manuals of style. These were put into place after discussions and censensus on one of the more "sensitive" areas to which some of your edits could also effect WP:TROUBLES, not sure if you have edited anything with a troubles tag but its a heads up anyway. I fully understand the blue link reduction , but some edits case ambiguity thats one benefit of blue links . Thank you. Murry1975 (talk) 12:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Johnny de Brest

You nominated it few months ago. It has now been recreated. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 15:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

For this. I was going to change the date formatting manually, so that's a big help :-) Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 02:44, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• You're welcome. I reckon I just saved you about 8 minutes! ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:08, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Date Changes

Sorry about that, I just like them the way I put them and I tried to get them all consistent. Sorry if I seemed like I was just needlessly correction things. I'm trying to spiff up the article.--Gen. Quon (talk) 18:47, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Punctuation

I keep seeing this argument be brought up in my RM on the Bakuman page, so may I ask you what makes "Bakuman." any different from say "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" or "Jeopardy!"?—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:58, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Citations at Suffolk University Law School

Hi! You may have worked on citations at Suffolk University Law School on 10 Oct. 2011. If so, please see my note. Thanks for your work! Yopienso (talk) 00:18, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Your edit to Alluc

Your 18 September 2011 edit to Alluc unintentionally left one reference embedded in another. I hope that I have corrected the problem. Please can you verify things are fixed?

Many thanks, --MegaSloth (talk) 00:39, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

• I appreciate the bug report. Yes, you seem to have fixed the problem. FYI, I have identified the error as coming from reflinks. I have already notified the maintainer as to this bug. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

  Thanks for taking a look. --MegaSloth (talk) 20:27, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Filling in references

Hi there. I am quite new here and have started working at Shaker Aamer. One problem i have there is formatting references (it is a mess now). I saw your edit here and i wonder if you could also format the references at Shaker Aamer? That would help a lot. I now still need to go through the article a few times to fix details and it would be so much easier if the references were formatted nicely. Regards PastIP (talk) 01:39, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• Done. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Awesome! I will continue working through the article the coming weeks. Thank you. PastIP (talk) 02:40, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Pankaj Oswal

Hi there, This subject is my first attempt creating an article so forgive any fluff ups. As new information comes to hand I'm adding text and references. I will try to follow your format, and I will go back through the wiki help pages to brush up. Any suggestions you may have are welcome. Thanks A fair go (talk) 06:40, 5 January 2012 (UTC)A fair go

Nomination of Kiangsu and Chekiang Primary School for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Kiangsu and Chekiang Primary School is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kiangsu and Chekiang Primary School until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:50, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Ohconfucius. You have new messages at Talk:Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon.
Message added 04:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

FYI Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Although I expressed some reservations on the talk page over at the Confucius Institute article, I wanted to say that I think many of your edits there are constructive, and a few are things I had planned to do myself (if no one got to them first). Good work, and thanks for being able to correct your course from time to time. Homunculus (duihua) 05:08, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• Your comments are much appreciated. Thanks, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:49, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

This may interest you ...

If my joke at your AfD brought the slightest of smiles to your face, this follow-up will certainly widen it.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Michael Woodford

Hi, re this edit to Michael Woodford, can you add a specific link to the website for the early career history? I can't verify it.

Also, note that you misread the meaning of 30 years in the source. – Fayenatic (talk) 20:53, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

• Actually, Woodford isn't as much notable as notorious. There is no bio on him that I know of; the one that was once on the olympus site has been taken down. So I got his details from various articles and not centrally. You may find most of them at Olympus_scandal#References. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 00:51, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

CI article oversimplification

You reverted my summary of a quote, in which only one detail was relevant to the paragraph. Maybe you can explain why you think this is a bad idea? how it's an oversimplification? I don't like to argue with folks about edits, this one I just found confusing. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 02:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

• The section is entitled 'hiring policies', not 'criticism of hiring policies', so it would be helpful to explain what the principle criteria are. The quote from the website does that quite succinctly, mentioning not only age, but falun gong and "other illegal organizations". By simplifying it to FLG and other illegal organizations, you removed the age criteria, which I feel is just as relevant to its policy. What's more, removing the age leaves the section a bit bare and more like a criticism section. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

• I see what you mean. I was looking at the rest of the section and seeing that it was obviously a criticism of the policy against FLG and other illegal organizations. Perhaps instead we should be more general as you suggest and then include the criticism in a more precise manner. I'm leaving your changes. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 08:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

You are invited to join Stanford's WikiProject!

As a current or past contributor to a related article, I thought I'd let you know about WikiProject Stanford University, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Stanford University. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks and related articles. Thanks!

ralphamale (talk) 22:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		This barnstar is awarded to everyone who - whatever their opinion - contributed to the discussion about Wikipedia and SOPA. Thank you for being a part of the discussion. Presented by the Wikimedia Foundation.

WP:TITLE revert

Regarding this revert... I was just trying to clarify the meaning of "ambiguity" to match what we say throughout policy and guidelines, which ultimately stems from WP:D which states in the lead sentence: "ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles." Do you not agree with that definition? --Born2cycle (talk) 05:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• As I had been arguing, my problem is not with 'in-wikipedia' ambiguity per se, but on a more global level. Your change went opposite to my concerns, potentially making the problem worse. Hence my revert. Let's discuss it further. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Can you please explain what you mean by "on a more global level"? In particular, how is that relevant to in-wikipedia titling? --Born2cycle (talk) 17:33, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Maybe you read my post at WT:AT? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 17:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Of course, but you're going to have to make the connection between that statement and my edit for me, because I don't see it. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:37, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

For reference, my edit was to change this:

Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources.

to this:

Names ambiguous with other uses covered on Wikipedia, or names that are inaccurate for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be most frequently used by reliable sources.

Your statement was:

Many laws have years attached to them: countries have been known to make a law and amend it some years later, appending a year to disambiguate. But it hardly helps in cases where, as I mentioned above, different countries having similarly sounding names for laws having similar scope.

--Born2cycle (talk) 18:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The statement in question, the one that I changed, is about what happens in-wiki. In wiki, the "ambiguous" names that are avoided (unless they are the primary topic), are those that are ambiguous with other uses of that same name used in Wikipedia.

Now, you might wish that to be expanded so that we avoided using names that are ambiguous in a more global sense, but surely you're not arguing that that is actual practice, are you? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:44, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• I am, and it seems it isn't just me. There's a whole wide world outside to whom wiki-style article naming of laws is totally meaningless. Our frequent recourse to "reliable sources" is an attempt to align ourselves to this outside world, yet that insistence in this topic area is of real disservice to the reader, IMHO. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • You're arguing it's actual practice in WP to avoid "using names that are ambiguous in a more global sense than when necessary to avoid conflict with other uses of that name within WP?" If so, examples, please. If not, what are you saying?

    If you're taking exclusively about one area, like articles about laws, that's potentially an entirely different subject. It's conceivable to have conventions for articles about laws that is, well, peculiar to those articles. I'm not a big fan of specialized rules, but if there is a big benefit in it, fine. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:13, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

    • Thanks for your understanding. It's about the only area I know of where there is such an issue, which may benefit from a specific exemption. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

You might want to look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (political parties) as a model for proposing a new Wikipedia:Naming conventions (law). --Born2cycle (talk) 23:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Also: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation). --Born2cycle (talk) 23:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

• That's useful to know. Thanks, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Kowloon Tong streets

I saw you prod'ed Lancashire Road and redirected La Salle Road - I think we should hold onto them for now, as I remember that both were covered by 爾東、李健信：《趣談九龍街道》, Ming Pao Books (明報出版社), Hong Kong, 2004 - one of the few publications which actually select notable streets in Hong Kong for discussion. It's a shame to see us losing La Salle Road - the article was previously on the front page DYK - and notability has been previously challenged but no action was taken. Deryck C. 09:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

• Sure. I just wanted to flag that there is a lot of work needed on the majority of these articles if they are to meet our WP:GNG. Cheers, and KHFC! Best, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Okay. PS I think it's spring solstice, not winter solstice, that we're celebrating this week (on the greeting on top of this page.) Deryck C. 15:40, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
  • PPS: We also need your support for meta:Wikimania 2013 bids/Hong Kong - the bid is now official! Deryck C. 15:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I came here to squabble about some of your prods too :). Most of them are not particularly notable, but some of them should be covered. Will see what I can do about some of the more notable of those roads.Bunston (talk) 06:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• It's difficult to see what's notable when most are lacking in sources, but I'm happy to learn that you will muck in. It seems about half of the prods have been removed without any improvement, which I feel is a bit unhelpful. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I've removed the tag on Deep Bay Link, added some meat, will continue to do so. The other prod removals are probably ultra-inclusionist working overtime. Gotta love them ;) Bunston (talk) 09:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Just a note: I've expanded Deep Bay Link significantly. Still have to add pictures. Thoughts? I'm planning to move on to Pok Fu Lam Country Park. Much thanks, Bunston (talk) 05:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Great work! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Could you please be less progressive? Many of the roads that you PROD'd, redirected or brought to AfD are indeed notable ones. If you aren't familiar, bring the matter first to the talk page of the HK WikiProject. Cheers. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 18:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Er, I did. Whist indeed some prods were pre-emptive, I disagree that all that many are notable. And even if they were, the articles as they stand do not make a case for their inclusion. Stating merely their location, what roads cross them, or that they are "main roads" is insufficient. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Many of your PRODs are adequately notable, and even for those that you redirected, you redirected to the wrong place. E.g. Tin Hau Temple Road isn't within the neighbourhood of Tin Hau at all. The same is true for Tai Tam Road. Please stop being so progressive and discuss before you kill around. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 19:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you know where Lam Kam Road is? If not, get a map and look for it. And after doing so please recreate the article. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 19:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you for referring me to a map; I am equally tempted to refer you to a dictionary. ;-) However, I would draw your attention to Wikipedia:Existence does not prove notability. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

If you have actually read the map you'll know why it shouldn't be deleted. 218.250.159.25 (talk) 10:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• That sounds very much like "Your arguments don't mean anything. I can see it big on a Hong Kong map, ergo it's notable as far as I'm concerned.". --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Why can't you work towards improving and expanding these articles that are about something notable? We don't PROD something just because "I don't like it" or "I've never heard of it". 218.250.159.25 (talk) 22:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Whether I like it or not, or whether I've heard of it or not, have sweet FA to do with my prods; I go by what policy dictates and then what's there in the article. I would strongly urge you to at least have the courtesy of researching what I do before you make such accusations about my work or casting aspersions about my motivations. Thank you for your attention. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:06, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Adaminte Makan Abu

Hi Ohconfucius! I agree with most of the changes you made in this edit to Adaminte Makan Abu. However, there were a few references where you added |location=India where the reference already had |location=Chennai, India. I've fixed them in this edit. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks. Looks like I may need to adjust my script to deal with those cases. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:59, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fæ

A request for comments has been opened on administrator User:Fæ. You are being notified due to your prior participation in ANI, RfA, or RfC discussions regarding this user. Thank you, MadmanBot (talk) 20:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

arbcom evidence

"At the MfD, B2C initially objects, falsely, that he wasn't notified"—b2c objected that you didn't try to discuss it first before filing an MfD, not that you didn't notify, as far as I can tell. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• Er, B2C was a bit ambiguous. Noted with thanks. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

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Bande à part vs Band of Outsiders

In light of your previous participation in titling issues, the discussion at Talk:Bande à part (film)#Requested move may be of interest.—Roman Spinner (talk) 22:00, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

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GB Railways

Please don't remove www from web address as you did to GB Railways - the prefix ( can) makes a difference in what page is found. Mddkpp (talk) 09:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• It's not a "fuck-up", thanks. You ought to realise there is a difference between a web address and a domain name. The "www." is utterly unimportant in |work= or |publisher= field; the actual address is alredy in the url. You actually undid many productive changes. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference - see the link I gave in the revert. Template_talk:URL#Exclusion_of_prefix_is_technically_and_in_some_cases_practically_wrong - it results in different results

Also see template:cite web for different uses between publisher and work. The address is in the url - but it is not immediately visible on the page - including the top level domain is useful to readers - there's also a difference between paper and web publications from the same publisher - which inlcusion of "work= top level domain" immediately shows when read.

Also don't change the capitalisation of titles stuff taken directly from a source .

I don't know why do are de-linking London but not the other city. I am not familiar with what you are doing to the hyphens - so I can't easily replicate that - if you feel that is important please redo the hyphens.

Mddkpp (talk) 13:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• As I said, it isn't a url you have in the publisher field, nor should it be. It ought to be the domain name or the name of the company without the domain name, as in "Telegraph Media Group Limited" which you quoted below. Technically, it is incorrect to have the domain name or publisher in the |work= field, because it causes an italicisation in the output in read mode (per WP:ITALICS), but as that particular issue pervades that article (as opposed to being a single occurrence) I decided not to make wholescale changes on that point.

  I unlink plenty of cities other than London, I perhaps ought to unlink more, but London is the obvious candidate because everyone knows at least something about London, least of all where it is. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Also note that if you really want correctness then for journals such as The Telegraph the publisher is Telegraph Media Group Limited which should be written as "Telegraph Media Group" - these aren't trivial changes and need to be properly researched, not just shuffled from pre-existing data in the template fields.

I use the formalism of using the common publication name as the publisher -since this creates a useful hyperlink for the reader, and the web address for the "work" field, which they can then resolve to the technically correct legal entity if they want.

For the web links I gave the publisher was not the "Daily Telegraph" - they were not from that paper - they were from the website that uses the working title "The Telegraph" which is published by Telegraph Media Group Limited. If the sources had been from the paper journal then your changes would have been right.Mddkpp (talk) 13:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

In fact the only field that "The Daily Telegraph" should be used in is "journal=".. Mddkpp (talk) 13:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• While you may be technically correct on the point about Telegraph Media Group Limited, I never attempted to include the publisher in the |work= field. I merely changed the url masquerading as the name of the publisher into |work=Daily Telegraph. The |work= |journal= and |newspaper= fields all achieve the same desired output and purpose of italicising the name in read mode, but |work= is the most universal as it works in all citation templates. |journal= only renders an output in {{cite journal}} and similarly |newspaper= only renders an output in {{cite news}}. Domain names are rarely italicised (see WP:ITALICS), contrary to what may be said or implied in the documentation of {{citation}}. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Please bear in mind what I said when you put your article up for Featured status one day, you will realise I am right. ;-) Happy editing! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

HK meetup banner

Thanks for pointing the error out. I think I fixed the dead-link, please check. Also thanks for the good work on the bidding page! Deryck C. 08:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

• You're welcome! Maybe it's just me, but I still get a null page when I click there, so I put a soft redirect there for now. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
• Now works! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:44, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Cool. I've deleted the interwiki redirect since it isn't needed anymore (and lots of people out there hate interwiki redirects, especially when they come out of mainspace) Deryck C. 18:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

What I don't understand

Why would you interpret what I wrote as me saying that you were threatened, rather than Dicklyon? Anyway, I've clarified it.

Did you read Wikipedia:Mfd#Before_nominating_a_page_for_deletion before you nominated my page for deletion? Why didn't you follow that? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

• I read it. The pertinent recommendation goes: "Consider explaining your concerns on the user's talk page with a personal note or by adding {{Uw-userpage}} ~~~~ to their talk page. This step assumes good faith and civility; often the user is simply unaware of the guidelines, and the page can either be fixed or speedily deleted using {{db-userreq}}". What did I do wrong? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:55, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
  • That pertinent recommendation comes from a table; immediately above that table it says, "Before nominating a page for deletion, please consider these guidelines:".

    I wouldn't say you did something wrong, but you did not do what it says. Specifically, you did not, "before nominating [the] page for deletion", explain "your concerns on the user's talk page with a personal note or by adding {{Uw-userpage}}..." (you did, however, notify me that you filed the MfD after you filed it, and after I already had learned about from Greg putting a template on the page).

    Anyway, that's why the first thing I wrote at the MfD was, "Isn't it normal to question a person about something like this on their talk page before filing an MfD?"

    How you get from that that I falsely stated I wasn't notified, which is what you asserted in the evidence portion at ARBCOM, is another thing I don't understand.

    This is all particularly frustrating to me because the one thing I strive for, to a fault (hence my long posts) is clarity. So when I try real hard to be real clear, and I'm still obviously completely misunderstood, it's very frustrating. That whole MfD started off on the wrong foot (I believe it wouldn't have had you followed the recommended guidance), and never recovered, even though the only uninvolved editor understood what was going on.

    But now to see you bring it up again at the ARBCOM thing, still based on misunderstanding, is just exasperating. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Confucius Institute

I just posed a question on the talk page for the concerns and controversies article. Seems that yourself, Keahapana and Shrigley are all telling each other to discuss things before reverting, and yet there has been no discussion in more than a month. I'd like to see some discussion take place, as I am utterly confused.Homunculus (duihua) 15:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

• Well, yes. I'm confused too. Keahapana appeared on month after all that editing activity during which the article underwent some radical improvement, and unilaterally apparently reinstates a bunch of stuff I thought we all agreed was not suitable for one reason or another. Shrigley opposed it yet he reverted... --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

If I may offer an unsolicited and purely speculative opinion, I imagine Keahapana was just waiting for things to cool off. The pace of edits a month ago was very difficult to keep up with, and it seemed a number of things did not actually achieve consensus. This was all the more so because of the merge discussion which, if successful, would have obviated further efforts on the daughter article.

I fall in the middle ground on the quality of these changes. As I said at the talk page, I am not a fan of compiling quotes and soundbites, particularly if they fail to actually illuminate the substance of a concern. Some of the deleted content falls into that category, but not all.Homunculus (duihua) 02:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for that message. I don't disagree with you. I did say I did not object to them all. However, as I already said on the talk page, my changes were mainly in response to the concerns raised. Many editors agreed with my changes and I thought that you were aboard with most of them, and I was surprised to see most of the removals reinstated by K in rapid burst of edits in rather summary fashion, as if they were uncontroversial. I don't want to swamp the page with what I think; I prefer to leave some space for others to get their word in. I'll go back to it in a few days to see what others have opined. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. I will take some time to look into changes in more detail in the interim. Homunculus (duihua) 03:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Moved where?

I saw you moved a text of Li Hongzhi, where did you move it to? In which article is there the information for the change of politics at the end of 1999? --Enric Naval (talk) 12:08, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Take another look at the diff, Enric. Ohconfucius just moved that paragraph further down the article. Jenks24 (talk) 12:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Jenks. Yes, it was all performed in the same edit. Nothing added, nothing taken away. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Friendly note on dates change

I noticed that you broke an image link when editing Wotif.com: [45]. I guess it's not a very common issue, but it almost got the image deleted. Is it possible for you to prevent link changes in your script? Cheers! -- Luk ^talk 17:22, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for spotting that error. I thought I built in protection for dates in image names. I'm looking at the script code to see what went wrong there. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

AfD and PROD

Howdy Ohconfucious. Awhile back you got either an AfD or PROD notification, and it was during one of the template testing project's experiments. If you could go here and leave us some feedback about what you think about the new versions of the templates we tested, that would be very useful. We're specifically looking for info about whether the messages were more effective at communicating how people should participate in deletion processes as the author of the article. (You can also email me at swallingwikimedia.org if you want.) Thanks! Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:38, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of Wee Shu Min elitism controversy for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Wee Shu Min elitism controversy is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wee Shu Min elitism controversy until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 11:18, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Superscripted ordinals

It's been a while since we last talked. How removing superscripted ordinals going? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• thanks for the ping. As to the targeted removal, I think I took care of most of them with this:

  (\d)<(?:small|sup)>(?:<(?:small|sup)>|)(th|st|nd|rd)<\/(?:small|sup)>(?:<\/(?:small|sup)>|)

  If you could do another AWB scan to find those remaining, including ones with the superscripted d (e.g. 2^d), that would be great. Then I can go pick off the newly inserted. Otherwise, I have included the code in my script so that these will be caught in one of my normal formatting runs. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 00:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Nanking Massacre "Edit War"

If you read the messages going back and forth in the Nanking Massacre "Edit War" (which has been amicably resolved, by the way), you'd see that what I was upset about was not that it was being called an "Edit War", but that

1. I was being singled out
2. I was being singled out by someone who wasn't even involved
3. I was being singled out by someone who made no attempts to find a solution

It was a drive-by "Edit War"-tagging that was entirely unhelpful and one-sided. If the editor had either joined in the discussion, or had put the tag on all those involved, there would have been no issue. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 01:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

New York City Subway stations

Hi,

I see you have cleaned up several NYC Subway articles. One question... Why have you unlinked station in the first sentence of those articles? That is the MOST important link in the entire article besides a link to New York City Subway. Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:01, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

• I have no issue with linking of [[New York City Subway]], as I would not challenge its relevance, importance, and value to someone visiting the articles in question. However, I would view '[[metro station|station]]' as a low value link. While I do not question its relevance, I would still argue that it would be peculiar for someone who has arrived at 181st Street (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line) or 111th Street (IND Fulton Street Line) not to know anything about 'station' or 'metro station', or to want to click on that link. What's more, the piped link is potentially misleading; 'New York City Subway' adequately supplies the context. Hope this answers your question. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:18, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification

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2002 NLL season

I hope I didn't walk over something you were trying to correct here, but it appeared that the page-foot was accidentally chopped. Perhaps you can double check my fix. Thanks. :)  -- WikHead (talk) 05:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You're most certainly welcome. Glad to have been of assistance. Regards, and keep up the fine work. :)  -- WikHead (talk) 05:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Pat Hawkins

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits to Pat Hawkins using Wikipedia:REFLINKS (of which I know nothing). This has improved my simplistic referencing, but :

• The Sunday Times was not the London based publication, it should be the West Australian / Perth edition, which has absolutely no connection to London.
• London is now erroneously included as the location, presumably because of the above confusion.
• 'Trove' is a digital service provided by the National Library of Australia. Surely the National Library of Australia should be the main name in the ref.
• You also added the { { British English } } template at the top of the edit page - . Presumably this should be Australian English.

I assume that you can correct the cites (as I don't have the skill). Regards Chienlit (talk) 10:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• I appreciate your drawing my attention to the problems; these have now been fixed. As to the national variety of English tagged, I woudn't be overly concerned with the "wrong tag". The script generally aligns spelling according to variants common to both Aussie and Pommie English. Other editors are working on tagging the articles with "correct" national variants, and may pass by the article in due course. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:56, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM dates

Hello Ohconfcius, I have been using your date conversion script for some time now. I think it works really well. I noticed that it doesn't convert abbreviations though. For example, if I click "ISO to mdy", it will leave the abbreviated dates. For example, Nov. 1, 2011. Is it possible to use the script to convert the abbreviations to the full word (i.e. Nov. to November)? Thanks, Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 21:57, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

• There's quite a bit involved, so it's not quite as simple as it sounds. I'll think about it a bit to see what exactly I have to do. Watch this space. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:27, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks for making the new script. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 01:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

---

hello,

could you make a script which replaces any date format to the German date format? For example, 1 August 1991 would be 1. August 1991, or March 1, 1995 - 1. März 1995. Thanks.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 13:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• Sure, it can probably be done. Presumably you want a script to run in de.WP?

  Please be aware that German format ought not to be used in en.wp, according to WP:MOSNUM. Can I assume that all the months follow a similar pattern? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:30, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  • Yes, I need it for the German wikipedia. Regards.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 16:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
    • I've knocked up something simple. You can try it out by copying the following line into your monobook.js, or your vector.js, whichever skin you are using:

      importScriptURI('http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ohconfucius/test/Deutschdatum.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

      Let me know if this is what you are after, and what refinements you would like. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:08, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

      • Thanks! :)--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 11:14, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Re

Sorry about reverting your edits at 1988 Atlantic hurricane season, and I know you are fixing style, but your edit at that page removed the images. JG ^{(edits · sandbox)} 00:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for the bug report. script now fixed. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:00, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Order of dates

Hi Ohconfucius. I can see that you have conducted a clean-up of 2007 in Denmark (and possibly other similar pages) where you for instance have changed the order of month and day so that the latter goes before the former (3 October instead of October 3). It is a very good initiative to try to introduce consistancy but I am the one who have created all these "XXXX in Denmark"-articles and added the vast majority of information on them until now. And I have used the other order (October 4) and used a LOT of time fixing dates (and also introducing mdash's instead of - or ndasg's). Now I would like to know if there is some kind of wikipedia standard which requires day to go before month so that we won't continue to change dates back and forth. I think the main thing is consistancy here but on this kind of lists of dates I prefer to have the month come first since I think that gives a more orderly impression. But still a very nice initiative with the clean-up and if Wikipedia requires the day to go first I of course respect that. But then I would like to know for future additions plus it leaves a lot of dates to be fixed since there are several hundred of these pages allthough some with more information on them than others of course.Ramblersen (talk) 12:22, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• After a long hiatus from working in this manner, I recently recommenced working on articles where there are a mix of dmy (date first) and mdy (month first) dates. I'm going through this new list. The article '2007 in Denmark' contains exactly such a mix, and I aligned them to dmy because I see that as the dominant format on Danish articles. Most European cultures use dmy in their native language, so that format tends to feel more natural, but I do see the reason for your choice of mdy. You are of course right that consistency is important. WP:MOSNUM values consistency within an article the most. There is no real guidance as to whether these dates ought to be dmy or mdy across a series, except when there are close national ties, such as for Australia, UK and EU, where dmy dates are deemed the "national format" on WP. I'm sorry if my edit caused you angst. I'll gladly put all the dates to mdy if you wish; at the same time and I'll pay more attention to other articles in the same series. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
  • No need to be sorry at all, I very much appreciate your efforts and I do realize that the article contained a combination of mdy and dmy. Based on what you write, I think I would prefer to stick with mdy though. What about mdash vs. ndash, is there any standard there? I put a mdash after the dates but since a lot of people do not even seem to destinguish between them it may well be an "unsustainable' choise,Ramblersen (talk) 06:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
    • OK, I'll make a note of your preference for mdy in those 'year in Denmark' articles. For dashes, I would refer you to WP:MOSDASH. I would recommend that you use this tool created for that purpose. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:39, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Your mass changes are bad

Your mass changes are bad, example [46] and other [47]. Please stop your mass changes. Subtropical-man (talk) 16:29, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• You don't define "bad", so that makes it very difficult for me to understand, act upon, or otherwise defend myself. That link to my contributions page is not at all helpful. It's like saying the one you're complaining about is a vandal, and is almost guaranteed to get their backs up. Either way, you should state the precise issue as well as supply diffs which are capable of highlighting the issue. Many thanks. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:33, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It's about your mass removal of internal links. Yes, some changes is ok, example removal "[[" and "]]" from names of capital city or business or similar other. But, removal internal links about country (example Spain from Barcelona' article [48], what a strange you leave link to counrty in the article Bangkok [49]) are not acceptable. This changes are bad. Many people read the article about city, will want to read more in the article about the country. You are forcing them to use search engine. These changes make difficult life of readers. Your some changes are absurd. You can remove internal links, but with prudence. Removal internal links about country in the article about city is not acceptable. Subtropical-man (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah... it's becoming clearer. Spain's a well-known country. I grant that some readers already at Barcelona might click on Spain, but most of those won't.

But what pray has any of this to do with Barbara Boxer? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 17:12, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

"Spain's a well-known country"? Name only... and this is your personal opinion. "I grant that some readers already at Barcelona might click on Spain" - where? there is no link. I wrote above: You can remove internal links, but with prudence. However, you are removing what they can, mass and without prudence. Subtropical-man (talk) 17:24, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Just coming here to note this as well, though not the same issues of common locations, but on how your automation is removing links in references. In this diff [50], 90% being good (dmy formatting, etc.) you are removing links to works and publishers in references. This is not a MOS-requirement - only internal consistency, and in the case of this article, tended towards inclusion of those links (that said, it is presently before and after inconsistent, that needs to be fixed). This has been discussed at LINK and the like, with consensus either that no work is linked or all works (even repeated) are linked within the references. You should have whatever script tool ignore work= and publisher= links in the citation templates to avoid this. --MASEM (t) 02:50, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I've never been able to decide whether links to publishers throughout a ref list are undesirable. I think so few people would click on one that I'd not use them myself. For the script application, it's often a matter of determining how an inconsistent treatment should be resolved (rather like the ISO date thing). Some latitude is reasonable. The Barbara Boxer edit was excellent. On Barcelona, I see <sarcastic>extremely useful terms such as "culture"</sarcastic> are linked. Why? I don't mind "Spain" once-linked in the lead, I suppose, but it's already linked in the infobox (which is allowable, although not required). Tony (talk) 03:15, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, the recent discussions (last 2-3 months) at LINK suggest that publisher= or work= links should be consistent - either all linked or all not linked - at the discretion of the editors of the page. Just because you don't find value doesn't mean others won't, but that's why its a MOS choice, not a singular style requirement. It should NOT be changed by automatic tools like this, even if it is inconsistent presently. If it were the case that of 100 refs, only 1 had a linked publisher/work, then sure, but here the case was about 50/50, so it is not a decision an automatic script should be making. --MASEM (t) 04:53, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Kind of petulant, and badly misrepresents what I said ("Just because you don't find ..."). I said, "I've never been able to decide whether links to publishers throughout a ref list are undesirable." Got it? Tony (talk) 06:41, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

My point is that from the recent discussions on WT:LINK about linking in references, no automated tool should be used to add or remove links to publisher/work to achieve consistency even though consistency is a goal; the page editors will need to come to a consensus which way to take it and then deal with that before trying to get the article to GA or FA status. If there was a way to page-tag like "use dmy" or the like for this, that would be one thing and automation could continue on that. But that's not in place. Based on what I'm seeing, OC's tool is enforcing OVERLINK (removing all but the first link to a term) in an article, but the stuff in reference tags should not be included in this process at this time. That needs to be fixed (it should be rather easy to ignore text wrapped in "ref" tags). --MASEM (t) 14:50, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

OK. It would be good if OC could switch it on and off where appropriate. I must say, this is starting to go beyond my technical knowledge. Tony (talk) 15:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I do appreciate your sensitivity to guarding the various consensuses over time. But this is complicated by several issues ...

As you can well see, The citations in 'List of Internet phenomena' article necessitated substantial manual cleanup on top of the automated one. Although it seems Masem is arguing that because somehow the majority of |work= and |publisher= were linked, that it was the work of magical active consensus at work. Fact is the citations in the article were such a dog's breakfast I am pretty confident nobody deliberately got together and agreed to put all those links and assorted incorrect formatting there. It is more likely than not that the links to Time or Wired, for instance, were done in one shot by one editor. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

You're absolutely right that before your changes they were a mess. That specific article is one that had a wide breadth of editors contributing instead of a few regulars that adopt a specific style, and as such the citation styles were a mess. But as no one was pushing to bring that article to GA or FL or whatever quality assessment was needed, there was no rush to decide if the citation style was to link every source or to link no sources. This is the type of automation that should not be done since it could go either way, or at least until after some type of consensus discussion was performed to determine which way to go. Arguably but not as much of one, deciding that that article was going to be dmy dates was also making a judgement outside of consensus, though dmy is likely the best format for that article to start.

The reason I'm pointing this out is three fold: One: this is exactly how the date-delinking case started; the use of automated tools to set one approach defined by the MOS over another approach that is also MOS appropriate. Two: we are still resolving the WP:TITLE arbcom case, which may not involve OC but should be clear reading the evidence and proposal submitted that the decisions there will affect all implementation of MOS support. and Three: the community does not accept one editor making unilateral judgements as evidenced by the case of BetaCommand. Basically, if this type of automation continues, you will probably find communication action against this.

Mind you, I'm all for automation to one style or the other if that can be defined within the article. The {{Use dmy dates}} is the type of parameter that can be put in an article, picked up by an automated tool like OC's and used appropriately. I would be happy to argue that we could use the same for links in citations, from which OC's tool can do its work effectively. But unless that is defined, and the intended style choice is not clear, no one should be automating additions or removals. That puts us right back to where we were 3-4 years ago. --MASEM (t) 19:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

there was no rush to decide if the citation style was to link every source or to link no sources. This is the type of automation that should not be done since it could go either way... Whilst I agree that we ought to create conditions under which consensus thrives, the truth of the matter is that the majority of 'casual' editors (term used advisedly) don't care one way or another about such 'trivial' matters. My edits to the article are typically the sort of action that is covered by WP:BOLD. I also agree that there is no rush, yet there is no need to solicit opinions on each and every point prior to commencement of each and every edit. Indeed, if everyone were to wait for a clear consensus on how to format dates, nbsp and dashes in each article, then nothing would ever get done in articles other than those being targeted actively for GA or FA; or things would get bogged through waiting for feedback from each item for which consensus is actively sought for each article. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:20, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

BOLD is not an acceptable solution by community standards from change to one or another MOS-accepted standard if it is not clear, using fallout from BetaCommand and data delinking as precedents. Again, there is no rush to fix things like date formatting or the like in references in articles if they aren't at GAN or FAC. Furthermore, our MOSs nearly always defer to style choices made by the initial editor on a page (barring obvious problems like using US dates on a page that's clearly about someone British), thus giving us a way to determine how to format if consensus hasn't yet been decided. As another point, formatting to one date style or another is easily done so that if you did happen to select the wrong date format, it doesn't take much work to flip the date order around with automated tools. On the other hand, striping wikilinks is not an easily undone action, certainly not with automation, due to the nature of disambiguation and the link. This is another point for why your automated tools should not be touching these unless you know you have consensus for that page to remove them. --MASEM (t) 13:49, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I also object to a few of your changes. In this edit, you removed the links for homosexuality and lesbian, but left the link for heterosexuality. You also removed links for Judaism and HIV. While all of these are common words, the terms heterosexuality and homosexuality are usually linked in sexual topics because their articles are helpful in understanding the topic of whatever sexual act. The same goes for linking sexually transmitted infections such as HIV. Why keep other sexually transmitted infections linked, but not HIV? Yes, HIV is a common word, but most people don't know a lot about it and just how it affects the body. As for religion, I would think that those links would be useful as well. Common words, yes. But how well do people understand these religions or a religion that is not their own? Imagine if we never linked to any of the common words on Wikipedia. The articles would have a tag describing how very few or no articles link to them. Flyer22 (talk) 17:42, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, I agree with the reinstatement. Apologies. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:08, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

The rather provocative title of this section caught my attention on my watchlist, but I have to admit that at first glance there are indeed problems with your mass changes. The first one I looked at is [51], where you changed a "use dmy" into "use mdy" (plus a change of all dates to mdy), despite the country involved being a DMY country. Any reason for this counterintuitive change? It doesn't make much sense to add a "use dmy" template if people will reverse it during mass editing anyway. Here you add a "Use British English" right above a "use Australian English" template, making ait a bit hard to follow... In this you add the "location=India" after "The Times of India" and "The Indian Express", which isn't wrong but looks odd and doesn't really help anyone. In this edit you change an interwikilink to the Ukrainian article: after your change, the interwikilink no longer works. Some of the links I give here may be discussed already, I haven't compared them, but the number of errors compared to the number of edits is rather high. Fram (talk) 09:19, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

• 2011–12 Football League (Greece) – mea culpa; now fixed.
• 2011–12 Commonwealth Bank Series – a minor nuisance. Someone invented the {{use Australian English}}, but the only automation available at present to correct spelling is my Engvar script, which is limited to 'basic' spelling commonalities between Irish, British, Australian, NZ, Seth Efrican. Anyway, I've now removed the British English tag.
• 2011 Mumbai bombings – I've now adjusted my script not to insert the |location= where the country or place name are already in the title of the work.
• 2011 Formula One season – Agreed that I need to find a way to avoid changing those interwikis. I'll tweak the code --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:37, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Script issues

Let's have a less judgemental title, hey? Fram has raised some good issues. And it's good to be reminded of the need for detailed scrutiny and care. I must admit to having made a few mistakes myself on the choice of dmy and mdy when trying to harmonise unholy mixtures of date formats in an article. But not often, and certainly a tiny minority compared with the ones fixed up, as I suspect is also the case with OC's work. Tony (talk) 11:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

• Despite Fran's assertion that there are too many errors, I am relatively pleased. I would point out that most were introduced manually. Only the change of an interwikilink to the Ukrainian article can be considered an "error". --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:48, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Masem seems to be conducting an anti-MoS campaign, witness his political push at a current ArbCom case. It's very disappointing to see such a one-sided behaviour from someone I thought was a paragon of even-handedness. The result of this political campaign would be edit-wars all over the place. Is that what he really wants? Tony (talk) 14:29, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

2011 Stanley Cup playoffs and others

Hey there. Just as a heads up, the mass changes you are enabling with your edits are having some unintended results. Check out 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs (and years previous to that) for some examples. The swapping of hyphens for endashes creates an error in the template meant to show the boxscores. Hopefully you can remedy the bug and restore the articles as soon as possible. – Nurmsook! ^talk... 05:04, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

• The change doesn't create a very obvious error. I thought it would be better changing the template, I looked but couldn't work it out. Therefore I've made a partial revert of the edits concerned. Hopefully I've done them all. Apologies. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:08, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Further this edit undoes a similar edit. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:44, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Walters diff immediately above doesn't lead to the desired place. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:07, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.